Hyperdimension Neptunia: The 5th Goddess
by MrNovaxc
Summary: It has been several years after Megadimension Neptunia VII, The PC Continent has since then gained its own CPU. The only problem is that she kinda died. Oops. It's okay though, with the aid of a god from another world, she calls on the aid of a young hero to help her. Things are going to get really crazy...well crazier than Gamindustri already is.
1. Chapter 1: The Obligatory Prologue

**So I'm trying my hand at writing a fanfiction. God help us all. Not much I can think of putting here, except that Hyperdimension Neptunia is owned by Compile Heart and Idea Factory. Maybe if I'm not a lazy bum and we continue on with this story, these little before and after sections will get more fleshed out**

 **Prologue**

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Nova had settled down in his room. It'd been a long day of him doing what normal guys his age does, which consisted of hanging out with friends, gorging himself on greasy foods, and getting in some sword training for the day. He flipped on his tv to El Bombaros Hamster, a show that was for all intent and purposes meant for kids, but it had somehow managed to get insanely popular with people well into their 30's. Sure he was only 18, but he couldn't help but enjoy it from time to time. Eventually after that he'd flipped to the news, which went on about how people of America were reacting to the Elven population. To his comfort, the reactions were overwhelmingly positive, with many people deciding to head to the Elven forest to learn more about them as well as touring around it in general.

He couldn't help but smile, no one but a select few people knew about his involvement in helping the elves arrive in his world, but to see them being accepted by humans so readily put him in quite the happy mood. To make matters even better, vampires had recently exposed themselves to the human world and while initially met with some reluctance, they were accepted into human society as well, according to news reports it partly had something to do with a recent movie that had teenage girls flipping out over anything vampire related.

This was all well and good, but eventually, Nova grew tired and so he decided to head to bed. It wasn't long before he'd fallen asleep, the soft embrace of sleep engulfing him and his consciousness fading. As he slept, a voice crept into his mind

"Hello?" A voice rang out, it was soft and feminine, yet Nova couldn't help but feel that it was somewhat weak as well

"Who are you?" He asked,yet he recieved no answer

"Help...please." the voice said again

"Help with what?" He replied

"There is not much time to explain. My time is short, will you please help me?" the voice said, though this time it felt more strained, they probably weren't kidding about their time being short.

"Fine, I don't know what's going on, but you sound nice enough and I can't turn a nice girl down."

"Thank you..." those were the last words he heard before everything went white. When Nova came too, he was in a forest like area. Getting to his feet, he checked his surroundings. There was no one here with him, so that meant he was on his own. He tried to move his body...only to realize that he couldn't, or rather, his body was moving without his control.

" _What the hell is going on?!"_ He shouted though the words didn't leave his mouth, instead when he did speak a female voice left his lips

"Please don't shout like that, it's way too loud." She said sighing

" _Then what the hell is going on, why can't I move my body?!"_

"Stop shouting! You are acting as my vessel. Don't worry, you're still all you." The female said again with a chuckle, she walked over to a small pond, staring at it to get a good look at her face. She had black hair that was done up in a ponytail, while wearing a sleek silver bodysuit. Her chest was...well Nova had to admit, it was pretty great and if he were a bit more perverted, he'd probably ogle them without a second thought.

"Are you enjoying yourself?" The girl asked smirking as she stepped back from the pond,

" _Uh...well...I mean it wasn't bad to see or anything."_ Nova sputtered out, but before the female could reply, a vibrant glow enveloped her body and Nova now stood where she was.

"What the hell just happened?" He said looking over his body, he somehow was fully clothed, even though he'd gone to sleep in his pajamas, but he wasn't going to question that, he was more so concerned with the woman and what happened to her, until he heard a voice echo in his head again

" _Do not worry, I am fine. We share one body now and as such so long as you are okay, so am I."_ she said with a faint giggle. That at least assuaged one concern of his, but now he needed to get some answers, namely who was she and where was he exactly.

" _Ah yes...allow me to introduce myself, I am Gray Heart, CPU of Steamport and welcome to the world_ _Gamindustri."_

"Gamindustri...okay, that's a strange name for a place, but why did you call on me? Heck, how did you even find me?" Nova asked still confused.

" _That is a rather...long story." The CPU replied with a sigh "I really wouldn't want to bore you and instead get to the work we have ahead of us."_

"I got time, so go ahead and explain." Nova said sitting down against a tree

" _Oh very well, if I must."_ Gray Heart murmured

END

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 **Well hey, if you've managed to stick around this long, I guess this wasn't so bad. Sorry if it's a bit on the short side, but I swore it was longer while I was actually typing it out. Anyway, if you've made it this far, let me know what you think!**


	2. Chapter 2: Death of a Goddess

**So hey! We're back with a Chapter 2 for this story! Surprisingly, I got 2 reviews (well 2 comments more like) merely a few hours after posting. That being said, I think I can at least reply to them.**

 **Author Heart-Ance: I'm going to assume English isn't your first language, since the comment seems a bit garbled. But Nova would normally be less surprised at CPU transformation if said CPU didn't suddenly take over his body with little to no explanation. He's seen his own share of weird stuff yes, but that doesn't mean he still won't be surprised**

 **Black Vasto Lorde: Many thanks! I'm glad you seem interested in the story so far. I just hope I can keep the momentum going.**

 **Chapter 2: Death of a Goddess**

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It was a sunny day in the nation of Steamport. Grise, the CPU of the nation was sitting in her office, going over the usual bits of information. How her shares were doing, if there were any complaints from the people (Thankfully there were none) and how the general quality of life was for her people. From the reports she was reading, everything was looking great and life in Steamport was the best it'd ever been. Her shares had to be at the absolute highest that they ever were and it was getting to the point where she was sure that the other goddesses of Gameindustri were taking notice. She was a new CPU compared to them, only having come into existence a few years ago, but even so the resounding successes she'd had with the newest software she'd helped put out was proving to really work out in her favor and for people who liked gaming on their PCs instead of consoles.

According to those that worked under her, over in the other nations PCs were at most used for MMOs and maybe visual novels, but nothing else really. But Grise had managed to make it so more than just that could be played on PCs. Platformers, FPS games; even some really popular retro games were all being brought over to the platform, some of them coming from Planeptune, Leanbox, and Lastation after developers there learned of her creation. Couple that with other useful things such as friend lists, groups, and voice chatting and it looked quite interesting to those who'd never used PCs for much else before. Grise let out a content sigh as she stood up from her desk, deciding that now would be a good time to get some fresh air. Too often did she spend long hours within her Basilicom taking care of work on this and that, so going out for a walk around town would do her some good. She needed to stop by the hunter's guild anyway, as there was no doubt that there were some creatures that would need subjugating. If there was one negative thing that had happened during her time as CPU would be the monster attacks. They were becoming more frequent lately and as she made her way towards the elevator and down to the lobby of the Basilicom she couldn't help but think about what possible reasons there were for the sudden outbreak. No matter what thoughts crossed her mind, it all led to dead ends.

As she wandered through the streets, Grise was greeted with numerous smiles and some cheers from the citizens which served to bolster her attitude. Seeing the people so bright and cheerful was enough to get her motivated to to destroy the monsters plaguing them. As she walked into the sleek looking building that was the hunter's guild she was greeted by the receptionist wearing thick-rimmed glasses.

"Ah, Lady Grise, here to take another quest I take it?" She asked adjusting her glasses

"That's right. I assume something's come up?"

"You'd be correct. Someone sent in a request asking for the elimination of a massive amount of dogoos. You know how those things are, kill one and at least 100 take its place."

"Not an exaggeration at all." Grise groaned "Very well, I'll take it on, I'll be back soon."

The receptionist gave a gracious nod as Grise left, heading for the forest outside of the city, the dogoos having said to have been sighted there. However, when Grise arrived, there were no dogoos around at all...in fact the entire land was ravaged, there were clear signs of a struggle, trees were twisted and bent, there were several medium sized craters, some of which were smoking slightly.

 _What the hell happened here...?_ Grise mused as she surveyed the area. She had a bad feeling about all this and was about to call this quest off and come back with some back up before a loud roar enveloped the area. Spinning around ,Grise summoned a large great sword in her right hand, her instincts on high alert.

"Alright whatever you are, show yourself!" she shouted at seemingly no one, but then as if on cue a red dragon like machine hovered down in front of her, wielding what appeared to be a mace in one hand and an axe in the other.

"Oh crap!" Grise exclaimed as she leaped out of the way. This thing...she'd heard about it before, it was Antares, but those things stuck to extremely hot regions, what was it doing here?! Numerous thoughts raced through Grise's mind, as she just barely dodged another blow from the beast, it letting out a loud bellow of rage at having missed again.

"Well, doesn't matter why you're here. All that matters is that you die!" Grise shouted as she became enveloped in a bright light, her CPU form Gray Heart now hovering where she once stood.

"Come then. I, CPU Gray Heart will be your opponent! Entertain me." She said with a smug grin, the Antares lunged at her, swinging both of its weapons at her, only to be met with a solid block by Gray Heart who forced the beast back.

"Come now, I'm getting bored." She jeered at the Antares; the beast charged again swinging its weapons again. Gray Heart barely dodged before turning back and swinging her great sword at the Antare's unguarded side. The beast yowled in pain, staggering back as Gray Heart begin furiously attacking not letting up for even a moment as she slashed , hitting the Antares wherever she could. The Antares couldn't keep up and resorted to helplessly flailing its weapons around in some vain attempt to hit Gray Heart, and while it did get a few hits in on her, it was nowhere near enough to stop the goddess at all. The monster let out on last growl of pain before disappearing into a small blip of data.

"What a waste of time and here I thought a risky foe would be an actual challenge." Gray Heart sighed as she felt the rush of battle leaving her, "Well at least the monster is taken care of so I can-"

Her words were cut short as she felt a sharp pain within her body. She looked down at her chest to see that she'd been run through by a sword that was glowing bright red. She could feel it draining her entire life force away. Gray Heart couldn't speak...she couldn't do anything, her body completely collapsed, her vision going hazy...whoever had attacked her had said something, but she had no idea what. Things were getting dark. She tried her best to cling to her life, to find some sort of strength to come back from the brink. But none came to her and soon she could feel herself fading.

"Awaken young goddess." Came a stern sounding voice

"W-what's going on?" Gray Heart muttered weakly

"Awaken." Said the voice again

Opening her eyes, Gray Heart looked around as she got to her feet; she was in some sort of void like space. Everything was completely white, the air felt odd and even the ground Gray Heart stood upon felt abnormal. This entire place was strange...

"Whose there? Where is this place? And where are you?!" Gray Heart yelled at seemingly nothing, there was on other person here beside her, and yet she felt the presence of someone watching her from every direction.

"You are in a place outside of time...outside of reality, a space of my own making. As for who I am...that does not matter. Know that I am merely a god who was observing you and saw your unfortunate end."

"My unfortunate end, wait you mean I'm dead?!" the goddess cried as her face paled

"To put it bluntly: Yes, you're dead. However, be that as it may, I've decided to extend a helping hand."

"A helping hand huh...what's the catch?"

"Within the world I oversee, there is a young man...he is an interesting case. He holds a unique power which allows him to best god, man, and monster. I would like you to have him help protect your people, for a while."

"So wait, you're asking me to call on some guy who can defeat gods for help? Wouldn't he try to kill me or something? He sounds kind of rough around the edges.,and what do you get out of helping me?"

"Do not worry, as I said, I am merely extending a helping hand." The voice said calmly "His power will prove indispensable to you and so long as you do not intend to betray him,he won't be of any trouble to you besides, what if the other goddesses decide to wage war against you and your people? Is that not something you've been worried about?"

Grary Heart snarled, the voice was right, that was something she'd been worrying about for a while now. The other goddesses would surely act at some point in the near future, and her having a trump card could be useful in outdoing them.

"I do not mean to rush, but do we have an agreement? You shall share a body with the young man. It should prove useful against that weapon that took your life, now then any questions?"

"Yeah...so this guy, he's beaten gods before right?

"Hmmm, he's defeated some foes that could be considered being at such a level, why did you ask?"

"Did he beat you?"

Gray Heart was met with silence for a while before a grin spread across her face, the silence from this mysterious god being all she needed as confirmation.

"He did not, he is not that strong...yet. Now then, get ready. Once he agrees, I will send you both to your world."

"Well alright...let's give it a shot, besides if he refuses what more do I have to lose."

A bright light engulfed Gray Heart's eyes as she began to see a young man with purple hair sitting down in his room watching TV.

"Hello?" she asked softly

" _And that's what happened."_ Gray Heart said as Nova sat against a tree _"I assume you know who that god was?"_

"I've got an idea, but it doesn't matter. I'm here now, so I may as well help you out. Which way do we go to get to Steamport?"

" _Judging from our surroundings, it should be to the north of here. Let's hurry, I need to let people know what happened and of our...predicament."_

END

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 **So another chapter gone by! And here we see just how Grise/Gray Heart met her end. Makes you wonder just who that was that did her in doesn't it? In the next chapter it's time for Nova to get settled in to his new place of residence! Until then, let me know what you thought of this one.**


	3. Chapter 3: The Oracle of Steamport

**And so here we are with Chapter 3! I'm hoping everyone whose reading it are enjoying it as much as I am writing it! That being said though, I won't prattle on any longer, so happy reading!**

 **Chapter 3: The Oracle of Steamport**

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Nova made his way through the forest, he'd found the main path that led to Steamport and even with how far he was away from the city, he could see the massive skyscrapers that were jutting out of the city and reaching towards the sky. It was quite the marvel and Nova was actually a bit excited to see the city in person once he reached it. Of course, that just meant he had (according to Gray Heart) about another hour or so of walking to get there.

" _Sorry, I left most of my usual dungeon traveling items at home."_ Gray Heart said _"Well, not that it'd be much use with the state I'm in now, looks like items don't carry over."_

"Uh right..." Nova replied, not having any idea what she was talking about. It sounded like something out of a video game. He just shook his head at her words and opted to continue walking in relative silence. It was about a few more minutes before Gray Heart piped up again

" _So tell me...what are the CPUs of your world like?"_ she asked

"The what of my world?" Nova replied genuinely confused, this girl was just saying all sort of random things

" _The Console Patron Units, you know your gods."_

"Ah." Nova sighed "Well, I don't really know all that much about them. I am friends with one though, she sorta has the same deal we have going on right now. She's in law enforcement actually."

" _One of the goddesses of your world is a cop? That doesn't sound too impressive really."_

"Don't let her hear you say that. Besides, that's just her day job. She's actually the goddesses of life, and pretty good at her job too."

" _Really? What kind of games has she made?"_ Gray Heart asked, her curiosity at an all time high

"Er...none? Our gods don't really make games or anything like that. We humans make our own games and stuff like that."

" _Really? How odd."_ Gray Heart stated, Nova was about to reply when three small animals...ones that looked like dogs except they were...slimes too,they were cute though and had a small tongue that hung out of their mouths and a little tail on the back as well, but just what the hell are these things?

" _Oh great, more dogoos, they're a type of monster that are all over the place. Take them out before the three of them try to merge together!"_ Gray Heart warned

One of the creatures 'dogoos' as Gray Heart had called them leapt at Nova, trying to attack him with a body slam, but he easily side-stepped it, the little thing wasn't that fast at all.

"Well alright, but uh, I don't have a weapon to use, and I doubt punching these things are gonna work." He said as he dodged the other two who tried for a pincer attack.

" _Oh crap right...let's see...try summoning my sword that should fix the problem, just focus for a bit and it should appear."_

Deciding not to argue with her, Nova did as she said and to his surprise a greatsword materialized into his hand with a bright glow. It was surprisingly light for how big it was and was at least 5 feet long making it a full foot shorter than him; he gripped the sword tightly, giving it a few practice swings. It was almost as if the thing were a part of him, and while he was usually used to fighting with two swords, this didn't feel unnatural at all. The dogoos had seen the whole display and each looking at one another begin piling on top of one another.

" _Shit, they're combining! Look out!"_

True to her words, the dogoos began to expand, getting bigger and bigger until it was least as big as a small house.

"Well...that's probably not good." Nova groaned looking at the thing as it toward over him. The giant dogoo lurched forward in an attempt to hit him, surprisingly moving a lot faster than its size would suggest. He blocked the tackle from it, but it pushed him back a bit.

"This thing definitely hits harder at least..."

" _Want me to take over?"_ Gray Heart offered

"Nah, I've got this, this thing is simple. Sides, let me show you a trick."

Standing perfectly still, Nova focused his power, a small bit of his will into the blade, it glowed a beautiful light blue color the more he focused. The giant dogoo, seeing this charged at him once again, hoping to knock off his concentration but it was too late. As it closed in, he swung his sword cleaving the giant dogoo in half and destroying it in a blip of data. If Gray Heart had a mouth, it'd probably be hanging open.

" _What was that, magic?"_ she asked surprised

"Nope, sheer force of will." Nova said plainly as the sword disappeared and he continued walking as if nothing had happened.

"Force of will,what do you mean by that?" Gray Heart inquired, she'd have a raised eyebrow,but you know...being sort of a ghost ruined that.

"I'll explain some other time, let's just get to town already."

An hour passed before finally, Nova arrived at Steamport proper. The city was pretty cool looking, there were dozens upon dozens of sleek futuristic looking buildings, above him were people getting around via some sort of floating platforms. Numerous billboards and advertisements (Many of which had Gray Heart's face on them) were sitting around on top of buildings. Overall, it was a pretty amazing sight.

"So this is Steamport. Not a bad looking city at all."

" _But of course, nation of Steamport is a thriving one thanks to yours truly!"_ Gray Heart boasted

"Right, that's great and all, but where do we go first?"

" _The Basilicom, the largest building in the city, a good friend of mine should be there. We'll let her know about what happened first. If word got out about what happened then it wouldn't be good."_

"It's a bit too late for that." Nova said, he'd walked over to a newspaper stand while she'd been talking and right on the front was a picture of Grise, wearing her gray colored dress as normal and having a warm smile on her face, but there was a large X on the image with the headline reading _'Goddess Gone for three months! Is this the end of Steamport?'_

" _THREE MONTHS!? I WAS ONLY GONE FOR A FEW MINUTES, HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?!"_ Gray Heart bellowed inside Nova's head, causing him to grab his head in pain

"Look I don't know, either, but it's safe to say that the god who brought us here knew _where_ to send us, but didn't focus on the _when_ part."

" _Ugh whatever just get us to the Basilicom. We're going to talk to my oracle."_

Deciding that they shouldn't waste any more time, Nova made a beeline straight for the Basilicom, it didn't take him too long as the streets, while full of people walking had very few cars at all. With how large the city was, he was shocked that there weren't any buses at all. It probably had something to do with all the floating platforms, but that wasn't important to think about at the moment. He stepped into the Basilicom its church like interior making him want to stop and marvel at the intricate designs, but his sense of urgency getting the better of him. There was a receptionist sitting there minding her own business, but gave a light bow as he approached

"Hello, how may I help you? Have you come to put up a quest?" she asked kindly

"No, I need to speak to the oracle." Nova replied

"I'm terribly sorry, but the oracle is currently busy, she can't afford to speak with anyone right now."

"I've got information on Gray Heart." Nova said bluntly, the receptionist's eyes went wide at the revelation of such startling news; it took her an entire minute to recover from such a bomb.

"I-I-I see" she sputtered "We-well, if you would kindly leave the information with me, I can forward it to the oracle and-"

"Sorry, but I need to speak to her about this _personally_." Nova said with an unwavering gaze at the receptionist, the poor woman couldn't find it in herself to go against him with such a look on his face and let out a defeated sigh

"I hope I don't lose my job for this..." She muttered before tapping a few things on her computer "Yes ma'am, I have news. A young man is here with supposed information about Lady Gray Heart and wishes to speak with you. I see...yes ma'am, I'll send him right away." The receptionist looked back at Nova and pointed to an elevator. "Take that to the highest floor, the oracle will be waiting for you there."

With a curt nod, Nova did as he was told heading into the elevator and riding it towards the top. It was pretty quiet in there and there were a lot of floors in the Basilicom, not surprising given how big the place was.

" _Did you have to scare the poor woman?"_ Gray Heart chided _"She was practically pissing her pants from the way she was looking at you."_

"I'll apologize later, at least we got through without any trouble, I was honestly expecting her to call the guards or something."

" _Good point...they must be really desperate for information then."_ The two continued having they're conversation for a short while before the elevator finally stopped. Stepping out, Nova took a look to his right to see out of the windows that lined the hallway. They were pretty high up and it wouldn't be a stretch to say that one could see the entirety of Steamport from here, it was quite the sight for sure, but as much as he enjoyed taking in the scenery, he walked forward towards an office door that slid open as he neared it. There, sitting at the desk with a neat stack of paperwork (good lord was it huge) sat a young fair-skinned girl with long grayish-black hair that ran down to her hip. She looked at him for a moment, her blue eyes sizing him up as if she were staring down a criminal before standing up and clearing her throat. This gave Nova the time to look her over a bit more, she was wearing a corset top that had a cute black ribbon that was tied at the center and held between the breasts, a black jacket with crosses on the sleeves, a black and grey skirt with white frills lining the hem and for footwear she had grey shoes with a cross design, worn with a pair of black and white leg warmers with a pair of white and black striped stockings. The last thing to note was she had a cool pair of black and red headphones around her neck. Overall, an 8 out of 10, not a bad looking girl at all.

"So, you're the one with information on Gray Heart? Don't waste my time, spit it out already!" she growled, glaring at Nova, which snapped him back to reality, hopefully she didn't notice him checking her out...

"Jeez, not even going to bother introducing yourself? Name's Nova, what's yours?"

"Nitroplus" the girl snarled "Now out with it, what do you know about Gray Heart?" It was clear she was agitated, probably because of all that paperwork. Realizing this, Nova just decided to get right on out with it.

"Well, I sort of _am_ Gray Heart. " He said with a nervous chuckle, the next moment he had barely ducked down as a katana sailed over where his head had been.

"I'm not in the mood for jokes, keep this up and I'll throw you out of the window." Nitroplus said with venom clear in her voice, her katana trained on Nova in case he made any sudden moves. He got to his feet carefully, holding his hands out to try and placate the girl

"Alright, just calm down, I can prove I'm not lying. Gray Heart, it's all you." He said to (at least from Nitroplus's point of view) seemingly no one. That all changed when in a flash of light, where the boy once stood was the familiar face of Gray Heart.

"It's good to see you Nitroplus. I trust you've kept things under control in my absence?"

Nitroplus didn't reply, she was still in visible shock at what had just occurred to her and it took all of her power just to give a small nod.

"What happened to you? Why are you a boy now? Where were you for three whole months?!" Nitroplus exclaimed, each question coming out rapidly after the other as she tried (and failed) to properly comprehend what was going on.

"Calm down, let me explain what happened exactly." Gray Heart replied with a calming tone

 _One explanation later..._

"So someone killed you...? And then some other god stuck you in that Nova guy's body?" Nitroplus asked making sure she had the story right as she and Gray Heart sat down across from one another.

"That's the abridged version of it. I know you've probably been working nonstop since I was gone, but is there any chance you can look into who might have attacked me? And what that weapon they used was? It's something that can easily kill a goddess, so whatever it is...it's definitely dangerous."

Nitroplus nodded "Of course, but...what about you? What are you going to do now?"

Gray Heart let out a sigh "First, I'm going to sleep. I'm burned out from all that's happened...then tomorrow, I'm announcing what's happened to me."

"Are you sure that's a good idea? I mean, how are the people going to take this?"

"Who knows, hopefully all will go well, I can't really stay quiet now that I'm back." Gray Heart sighed "I've seen the headlines and I need to reassure the citizens of Steamport that everything will be okay."

"I understand, I'll do the best I can, when do you plan to do the announcement?"

"A few days from now should be good, one last thing...how goes things in regards to the other goddesses?

"Well, no signs of them getting antsy, but Vert has been quite eager to meet you."

"The CPU of Leanbox, why would she be eager to see me?" Gray Heart said with a raised eyebrow

At this, Nitroplus blushed a bit "Well, she's my friend and I sometimes mentioned you when we played 4 Goddesses Online together. I've subtly mentioned some peace talks and Vert has been more than accommodating. The problem is well...you weren't here, so I had to dodge the line of conversation for a while."

"So what you're saying is...we may be able to negotiate a peace treaty with Leanbox?!" Gray Heart exclaimed with excitement in her eyes

"Yeah, after you do that big reveal of yours, I suppose we can get to work on it?"

"Yes, good work Nitroplus...you've done a great job running things while I was gone. I'm turning over control to Nova again, but before I go, I've got one last thing to say."

"What's that?" the oracle replied

"Nova was totally checking out when he first walked in here."

A flash of light enveloped the room once again and Nova was back in control of his body...and staring at a glaring Nitroplus.

"S-so, glad to be working with yo-"

He was cut-off mid-sentence by Nitroplus slapping him hard across the face before exiting the room.

"Dammit Gray Heart." He muttered, as the goddess snickered at his misfortune, he let out a loud sigh as he rubbed his cheek. He'd have to find some time to apologize, but for now, he decided to follow Gray Heart's plan and get some much needed rest. The day's activities had finally caught up with him and he felt a lot more tired than he did a few minutes ago.

END

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 **And there we have the end of Chapter 3. Fun fact: I was actually thinking of having the oracle of Steamport be someone else entirely, but after going back and thinking on it, I think Nitroplus seemed like a much better fit. Besides that, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. And don't worry, that little bit of power Nova showed off will be explained. Anyways, tell me what you all think!**


	4. Chapter 4:The Lady of Leanbox

**Hey there everybody! Sorry if it seems like I've been gone long. I've just been relaxing what with Thanksgiving and all (And soon Christmas) happening. That being said, I am quite thankful to you all. 500+ views so far on this little project of mine and I'm quite happy that so many have enjoyed it. With that being said, enjoy. This is by far the longest chapter written thus far.**

 **Chapter 4: The Lady of Leanbox**

* * *

"And that is why I hope that the citizens of Steamport will welcome Nova Crestfall with open arms; I promise you all, that as my vessel he will do the utmost to make sure that our nation is prosperous. I will find who attacked me and for the good of the nation root out this evil before it can bring harm to anyone else." Gray Heart said to the crowd of onlookers as she stood atop a podium, it'd been a few days and since she'd had a proper rest and once she called out for the announcement, the turnout was expectedly huge as the denizens of Steamport all got together to hear their goddess speak. All of them listened with rapt attention as she spoke. Someone had killed their goddess, that was shocking to them, but when Nova walked out and transformed into her, there were quite a few whispers of surprise, still at the end of it all, the fact that Gray Heart had returned albeit under weird circumstances only served to invigorate their faith in her since as far as they were concerned, even death couldn't contain their goddess.

Gray Heart left, leaving Nova to stand there and end the conference. "So uh, yeah..." He said rubbing his hand bashfully "That's the gist of it. I know Gray Heart already said it, but I'm gonna say it again just to be safe "Don't worry, I'll find out what happened, I promise. I've got your back, and with Nitroplus helping me out, we'll figure this out soon enough." Nova began to walk off stage until his stomach let out a loud growl. It was already past noon and he'd spent all morning getting ready for this conference so he didn't get to eat anything. He sure could go for some pizza, and that's when he got the idea... He returned to the podium with a smile on his face, ready to enact his plan

" _What are you doing...?"_ Gray Heart asked from within his head

He ignored her, and proceeded to tap on the microphone, which caught the crowd's attention as they all turned to listen to what their new leader had to say.

"Alright, I know this is probably a gross misuse of power, but I am starving, is there anyone in the crowd that knows a place with good pizza?"

The crowd was silent for at least a full minute as they all looked from one another, some with looks of disbelief on their face.

" _ARE YOU INSANE?!"_ Gray Heart bellowed _"You can order when we get home! Give me control; I have to apologize for your rudeness!"_

Before that could happen though, one person from the crowd called out in response. "Yeah I work at Domineps! What do you want?"

"Cool! Give me a large cheese pizza and your best soda too." Nova said with an excited look on his face

"You want hot wings; we got a deal going on right now!"

"That's perfect, how soon will that be ready?"

"30 minutes!"

"Cool, I'll be looking forward to it!"

With that Nova left the podium, looking forward to his food, once he was back inside the Basilicom he was beset by Gray Heart screaming into his head.

" _What is wrong with you? Did you seriously just do that?!"_

"What's the big deal?" Nova shrugged "I don't think anyone will care if I order a pizza, we all gotta eat after all."

" _You...you...!"_

"Are you insane?" came Nitroplus's voice from behind him "Ordering a pizza in the middle of an important conference?"

 _Thank you, at least someone else understands!_

"Oh shut up." Nova said, which caused Nitroplus to glare at him "Oh, not you Nitroplus, I was talking to Gray Heart."

"Right...I'm sorry, that's still going to take some getting used to. Still, you're technically a CPU now, this isn't a joke."

" _She's right you know."_

"Alright, I get it. Wanna share some of the food with me? You've gotta be hungry too right?" Nova asked trying to win the girl over, she was still a bit angry with him about a few days ago and this latest thing may have caused her to dislike him a bit more.

"No thanks, I'm not hungry." She replied flatly

 _ ***Grooooowl***_

"I get the feeling you're lying, come on, think of it as an apology about what happened before."

Nitroplus sighed, her face a light tint of pink, damn her stomach for betraying her at a time like this. "Fine, but I'm serious, you can't go doing things willy-nilly just because you can." The girl continued to chide him until the food arrived, thankfully Gray Heart was nowhere near short on money, and so paying the deliveryman wasn't a hassle at all. As the two (three?) ate their food Gray Heart was curious on the dealings with the CPU of Leanbox as well as the assassin who attacked her and so she bugged Nova to ask.

"Hey Nitroplus, Gray Heart wants to know how things are going with Leanbox and the assassin, any good news?" Nova asked finishing off his third slice of pizza, he was pretty curious on that whole front too, hoping that something had come up so he didn't have to worry about someone trying to blow the Basilicom up or something even worse than that.

"Well in regards to the assassin, no luck yet, though I've got some of our men looking into anything odd at all. Something that'd tip us off as to who exactly is behind the attack." The oracle let out a sigh, and if it were any indication, she was frustrated that she didn't find anything on that front. "As for Lady Vert, things have been going well. We were playing 4GO last night and she said she wouldn't mind speaking with you."

" _Really, let's do it then! ASAP!"_ Gray Heart said with excitement

"Gray Heart seems all for it, when do you think we can get an audience with her?" Nova asked

"Hmmm, it shouldn't take me long to get in contact with Lady Vert, I'll get on that after we're done eating. " Nodding his head, Nova decided to leave it up to her and went back to enjoying his food.

* * *

 _ **Meanwhile at the Leanbox Basilicom**_

Vert, the CPU of Leanbox was completely focused; she and her guild on 4 Goddesses Online were mere moments away from defeating the latest raid boss. The dreaded slime-hydra had proved to be a difficult boss that had stone walled the entire raiding scene of 4GO for two months straight and with a few more hits, Vert and her group would be the first group in the world to have taken it down. With the beast down to 3% of its health, Vert's heart was pounding as the fight wound down; everyone was doing their best to beat the boss, ignoring mechanics to dole out what precious dps they could. Each party member was falling one by one until Vert was the only one left, it was discouraging, but Vert pushed on since there was only 1% left, one sliver of HP. Vert looked at her character's health, it was at a meager 500 out of the 1,500,000 that she had, one more attack was all it took to do her in. The same could be said for the Slime Hydra as it too was on its last legs. Doing the best she could Vert hoped to land one final attack.

Unfortunately, the creature had hit her first, and as her character went through the death animation, Vert could feel her heart sink. It'd be an entire week until she and her guild could take another shot at the beast, but as her character fell down the screen went black and the death animation for Slime Hydra played.

They'd done it. They'd won.

 _THEY'D WON._

"YES! YES! FINALLY!" Vert yelled at the top of her lungs "AFTER TWO WHOLE MONTHS, WE'VE FINALLY DONE IT!" Vert was completely ecstatic at her newest victory, but her excitement didn't stop there, because one of her team had revived and opened up a chest, revealing the Slime Hydra Rapier. Vert's eyes grew wide as the weapon sat there

"Vert, I have a message for yo-"

 _ ***THWACK***_

"YES!"

Unbeknownst to her, Vert had just knocked out her oracle Chika in her excitement. It took at least a full five minutes (after Vert and her guild had all congratulated one another) before Vert was aware that Chika was sprawled out on the ground and moved to try and help her up. "My, Chika are you alright, what are you doing sprawled out on the floor there?" Vert asked after she finished closing down the game, she needed to relax after all that excitement.

"Yuuuugh..." Was all the oracle could utter in response, eventually she'd regained her consciousness after Vert spent some time letting her rest on her lap (Something that Chika sorely wished she'd been conscious for) before the oracle finally got back to her feet and begin speaking "There was a call for you from Nitroplus, she wanted to speak with you."

Vert raised an eyebrow in surprise "Really? How strange, she normally gets my attention via 4GO. Very well, I'll speak to her without delay." The CPU of Leanbox made her way to her office and sat her desk, looking at the computer that sat in the middle. There on the screen was Nitroplus, with a small smile on her face.

"Good to see you at last Lady Vert." She said trying to sound proper

"Oh please Nitroplus, we're friends, call me Vert. Besides, remember what happened when you decided to bathe in that lake~? After that, whatever barriers there were between us are long gone."

"Please don't bring that up." Nitroplus said blushing profusely; she would never forget how Vert nearly undid her panties, putting everything on display. "That aside, I was told to contact you since Lady Gray Heart has decided to speak with you.

"Is that so? I look forward to finally getting to speak with her." Vert replied, she was quite excited now, though she hid it behind her usual calm demeanor, she'd heard very little about the new goddess, though she was aware of her astonishing share increase, namely from a platform she released called 'Smoke' for PC gamers. Aside from that, not much else had really been made public about her. Even Nepchan didn't have too much information, saying that the goddess was mostly a recluse.

A few minutes passed, before Gray Heart came on screen. To Vert's surprise, she was in her HDD form, why she chose to appear before her in that state was anyone's guess, but Vert chose not to question it, instead keeping a kind smile on her face.

"Lady Gray Heart, a pleasure to finally speak with you." Vert said with a grin

"Likewise, I'll get straight to the point Lady Green Heart-"

"Please, call me Vert."

"Er...right, Vert. Well then Lady Vert, I would propose a peace treaty between our nations."

A treaty between the nations of Leanbox and Steamport...? That was something that Vert didn't expect out of the blue. The CPU was genuinely surprised by the notion, all she'd really done was want to talk to her and hopefully invite her over for a game night. She knew Steamport put out some powerful PC hardware, hell she was using one of their custom made gaming PCs herself, but the CPU had a serious look on her face.

"A peace treaty, but for what reason? I don't think there's any reason for you to worry about an invasion."

Gray Heart let out an audible sigh "Perhaps not...but well, I do not mean to brag but my shares are a bit...high, and to be honest I am not sure how well the other goddesses would take it. I've heard...tales of them and out of them all Nitroplus mentioned that you were the most...rational."

Vert was silent for the moment, while her face had a look of serious contemplation; on the inside she was letting a little giggle of glee. This was cute, really cute. The CPU of Steamport believed that she was in danger because of her high share count. Sure at the moment, she was leading amongst them all, but she really didn't know the Neptune and the others if she thought that her share count would cause them to go to war...especially Neptune, there was no way that the purple haired goddess was going to attack anyone for having higher share counts when she was routinely in last place amongst everyone.

"So...do you agree with my plan?" Gray Heart asked, snapping Vert back to reality

"No." Vert replied plainly, which made Gray Heart's face pale in shock

"N-no?! B-but I'm sure we can-!"

"Let me finish." Vert interrupted "No...but if you come to Leanbox for a few days, I'm sure we can work something out.

"You want me to spend a few days in Leanbox?" Gray Heart asked, the panic in her voice dying down

"That shouldn't be an issue should it?" Vert asked doing her best to suppress a grin

"No, I suppose not. Very well, when should I arrive?"

"Tomorrow evening, that should give you adequate time to prepare shouldn't it?"

"That should be plenty, thank you for the opportunity Lady Gr-I mean Lady Vert."

The monitor went black, signifying that Gray Heart had left the call. Meanwhile, the gears in Vert's head had begun to spin. "Chika, I need you!" Vert called out, she didn't even bother looking up as within moments the green haired oracle was standing before her.

"You called?" She asked with a small bow

"Yes, I need you to get the entertainment room all set up as well as doing a bit snack shopping if you don't mind."

"Of course, anything for you Vert!" Chika replied turning to leave

"Oh, and one more thing!" Vert exclaimed jumping to her feet and pouncing on Chika, "STOP TAKING MY PANTIES! BAD CHIKA!"

Of course, a pair of panties dropped to the ground, which Vert easily identified as her own before Chika quickly snatched them up again.

"NEVER!" The oracle shouted as she dashed away, doing her best to escape with her coveted prize, looks like Vert would have to enact her plan later.

* * *

 _ **Sometime later in Steamport**_

Nova and Nitroplus were out in the back of the Basilicom, this area was for Gray Heart and by extension him to use as a training ground to refine combat techniques. As such there were some metallic striking dummies set up for him to practice his techniques on and he wasted no time striking them and dodging them.

"So you're going to Leanbox for a few days, you sure it's a good idea since you just got back?" Nitroplus asked as she watched the boy swing the greatsword around with great force

"Yeah, Gray Heart agreed to it, and according to that Vert girl, this is the only way we're getting a shot at a peace treaty." Nova said between sword strikes and dodging of attacks

"That's weird. I wouldn't expect Vert to just suddenly invite you over, how does Gray Heart feel?"

" _I don't trust her, even if she's friends with Nitroplus."_ Gray Heart mumbled from within Nova's head _"When we get there, be extra careful."_

"Oh you know, completely paranoid." Nova replied nonchalantly

" _I am not!"_

"Knowing her, that sounds about right." Nitroplus said shaking her head in agreement

" _Hey!"_

Nova continued swinging his sword and dodging the dummies, before focusing more of his power into the blade to cut them all down in one fell swoop. Nitroplus raised her eyebrow in surprise at the display

"That's a neat trick. Don't think I've seen any kind of magic like that before though, what's with the blue glow?"

" _I'm curious too, you never did tell me."_

"Oh right, well to make an extremely long story short, I'm able to harness my willpower and channel it into raw power, pretty cool huh?"

"Willpower...how does that work?" Nitroplus inquired still not getting it

"Well uh..." Nova rubbed his head again "How to put it..." In truth, he wasn't entirely sure how his abilities worked either, but he knew he had to explain it somehow. After a few minutes of standing there he came up with the best explanation he could. "It sorta works like...say you want something and it's completely impossible, everyone is telling you no, but you keep pushing onwards and even though whatever you're trying to get is completely impossible, you push forward and get it anyway! Makes sense right?"

I think I do...more or less." Nitroplus replied shaking her head

" _I don't get it really."_ Gray Heart said in a deadpan voice _"It doesn't really matter what you can do, so long as I've got you in my corner, I don't care how it works."_

The two (three?) of them continued conversing for a short while before decided to get back to their duties, which in Nova's case was packing for this short stay and with the whole 'inventory system' that Gray Heart had mentioned to him, it made that pretty simple. As for Nitroplus, she'd gone to bed, claiming she was tired and that she had to go speak with an informant tomorrow who may have some information about the assassin.

All things considered, things were looking good for Gray Heart; she had a chance to protect her people from war, there was hopefully going to be some progress made on her killer, but most of all, her people were happy to see her back. She'd looked at her share count and it had actually risen a fair bit, even with Nova's pizza shenanigans...actually, that'd made things better even, when she went on a forum unique to Smoke, a lot of people found it funny. Now she just had to deal with Vert, which couldn't be so bad right?

Oh if she only knew...

 **END**

* * *

 **Another chapter down! Again, I hope you all have been enjoying things up to this point. Now what could sweet old Vert be planning eh? I've always seen her as bit more cunning than the other CPUs within the games. Also yes, Chika is back in Leanbox as well. I never understood why all the other oracles (sans Histoire of course) were 'conveniently away on a trip' or whatever the excuse was in VII. And so given that, I've decided to have them pop back up here and there. That said, I think after each chapter I'll drop a fun fact about things in the story and other interesting tidbits.**

 **Fun Fact: Gray Heart's fighting style is meant to be a berserker fighting style. If you've ever played the MMO Vindictus and seen the character Hurk, his playstyle is extremely aggressive (Really, just look up some youtube videos, it's pretty crazy). Some could say Blanc is a berserker, but in game she's a lot more of a tank than anything else. To contrast this, when Nova fights, he's a lot more calmer with his hits and doesn't rely on simply overpowering the enemy.**

 **See you next chapter~!**


	5. Chapter 5: All the Other Goddesses

**And so here we are again with Chapter 5. I may take a short break after this one, mostly for Christmas and new years and all that. Aside from that I wanna once again say thanks for all the reading and what have you, and I hope you all continue to enjoy the story. We've got one more chapter of silly antics before things probably really start to pick up.**

 **Chapter 5: All the Other Goddesses**

* * *

 _ **Planeptune Basilicom**_

Neptune was excited; she and Nepgear were going to a sleepover at Vert's place for a few days. Normally this wasn't too big a deal. Vert had invited her and Nepgear over before (mostly so she attempt to steal Nepgear away or do something lewd to the CPU Candidate while Neptune wasn't looking) but what had piqued Neptune's interest was that Vert made claim that there was a 'special guest' she wanted them along with the other CPUs to meet. To this end, a super mega slumber party extravaganza was planned. Thankfully, Histoire wasn't against the two of them going away for a few days...probably to give her some much needed relaxation time, so there was no need to worry.

"Get it in gear ! We're gonna be late!" Neptune called to her younger sister; Nepgear stumbled out to the balcony a few minutes later, along with a red haired girl following behind her casually, she let out a chuckle before addressing Neptune.

"Calm down Nepsy, Gearsy here was just going over a few things with me before you left."

"You sure you don't wanna come along Uzume?" Nepgear asked "I'm sure Vert would be glad to have you."

"Nah, I'll hang out here with Histoire, can't have her housesitting by herself, you two have fun alright? Tell Vert I said 'hey' and all that jazz."

"You got it Uzume! Now come on Nepgear, let's fly!" Neptune called, transforming and taking off without another word.

"Wah! Sis, wait for me!" Nepgear panicked as she transformed and flew after her sister. The two CPUs were flying for a few hours before they finally landed on the balcony of the Leanbox Basilicom, returning to their human forms. "Ooooh Vert, We're here~!" Neptune called in a singsong voice

To both of their surprise, the CPU of Leanbox heard their voices and came running, somewhat surprised that the two of them had come so early.

"Wow Vert, you aren't playing an MMO right now? I was sort of expecting a repeat of after the 5pb concert." Neptune said grinning ear to ear

"I...haven't forgotten that, but why are you both here so soon? Not that I'm against seeing Nepgear of course." Vert replied while staring at Nepgear with what could only be described as the same look a lion would have while stalking its prey. Said look caused Nepgear to take a few cautionary steps backward in case she needed to make a quick escape.

"Whaddya mean why are we're here so soon, we're right on time!"

"Neptune, you're 5 hours early." Vert deadpanned

"Oh..." Neptune drawled, maybe her excitement had gotten the better of her...come to think of it, she did recall Histoire saying something similar as she was getting ready to leave.

"We-well, since we're here, why don't we help you set up then Vert?" Nepgear chimed in, feeling a lot more embarrassed than her sister did

"I'd very much welcome that Nepgear, thank you for the assistance."

"So, just who is this special guest anyway Vert? You've got this girl wantin' to know!" Neptune asked as the trio began walking through the Basilicom

"Sorry Neptune, I can't ruin the surprise, you'll just have to wait till later."

"Aw come on, not even a tiny hint?"

"Nope, none at all."

"Aw phooey, you're no fun Vert!"

* * *

 _ **Back at the Steamport Basilicom**_

"You got everything?" Nitroplus asked as she and Nova stood outside on the balcony of the Basilicom

"Yeah I've got everything, thanks for the cellphone by the way." Nova said with a nod

"No problem, it's better than that antique you were using that's for sure."

Nova couldn't help but shudder a little. The cellphone he had on him while in his world was top of the line, especially since it was made by a friend of his who owned her own multibillion dollar company and who prided herself on being at the forefront of technological advancements, so to hear someone so brazenly call it an 'antique' made him fear for his life if she ever found out about someone saying it.

"Well, I'm off, if you find out anything about that killer don't hesitate to call."

"Of course, now get going, you've got a long flight ahead of you."

Letting Gray Heart take over, she soared into the sky, heading westward to the landmass where the other goddesses resided. Needless to say, when Nova found that they were going to fly all the way there he was a bit surprised. It was quite the stretch of water towards Leanbox and Gray Heart told him they'd be flying for hours on end. When he asked her why they weren't taking a private jet or something, she calmly told him that flying there themselves would be easier than going through all the planning of booking a flight and such.

Gray Heart soared through the sky, the water below them seeming to stretch on endlessly, Gray Heart was flying quite fast all things considered, but it'd still take quite some time to arrive, so what better way to kill some time than some idle conversation?

" _So Gray Heart...you nervous?"_ Nova asked

"I'd be lying if I said I weren't. I don't know what Green Heart is playing at, but when we get there, be on your toes."

" _You make it sound like the woman is planning to have you jumped by the other goddesses or something. Come on, Nitroplus put in a good word for her after all, the least you can do is not be so paranoid."_

"I guess you're right. I'm just a little on edge that's all."

" ' _A little' is putting it lightly."_

"Oh shut up already."

The two continued to talk throughout their flight, the sun was setting by the time the nation of Leanbox came into view. Just like Steamport, it was a pretty futuristic looking place, and yet there was still quite the abundance of greenery all around the city itself along with a few mountains off in the distance. What stood out the most though was the Basilicom of Leanbox. It wasn't like Steamport's which was basically a large skyscraper, but the one here was instead a sort of archway like design. Needless to say it was the biggest building in the entire place and as Gray Heart drew closer, she had to find a proper spot to land. There was a balcony, but just landing there seemed a bit rude to her. So without any other ideas, she landed smack dab right in front of the Basilicom doors, needless to say that the two guards standing at the ready were more than surprised.

"H-halt, who are you?!" One of them replied shaking somewhat at her sudden appearance

"I am CPU Gray Heart, I was invited here by Lady Green Heart."

The guard looked to his compatriot, telling him to go look into it. The other guard scurried off as Gray Heart waited. He returned a few moments later ushering her through and telling her to take the elevator to the topmost floor. Once on the elevator, Gray Heart deactivated her HDD form, leaving Nova in control again

" _I'll leave things to you for now. I'm a bit worn out from all that flying, just fill Green Heart in on what's happened, I'm going to sleep."_

"Wait...you sleep?"

" _Of course I do! I may be a spirit...or ghost...or whatever, but I get sleepy too!"_

"Well, whatever I guess." Nova said with a shrug. He remained quiet throughout the elevator ride until finally he reached the top, exiting he elevator he saw...no one. Not a person could be seen within the hallway, with that being the case, Nova just continued walking around, hoping he'd fine someone. "Hey Green Heart, you here?" Nova called out, receiving no response at all

"Guess I'll keep going then." He muttered to himself, he continued walking for at least another 5 minutes when he saw a door ajar. His curiosity getting the better of him, he stepped inside; the room was dark until the lights suddenly flipped on.

"SURPRISE!" Came a group of voices (all of them female Nova noticed) before Vert herself ran up and took his hands

"Welcome Gray Heart! It's nice to see you in the flesh at last, I know you're surprised, but I felt it'd be better to discuss things with the other CPUs and-"

"Uh Vert..." Neptune interrupted

"What is it Neptune, I'm welcoming our guest!"

"About that...you realize that's a dude right?"

"Don't be silly Neptune" Vert scoffed "This is clearly...a...oh my." Vert said as she realized that yes, the hands she held were indeed the hands of a male. She backed up a bit, collecting her thoughts

"Well...uh...pardon me, but who are you exactly?"

"Name's Nova and I'm...technically Gray Heart too." He said smirking "You went through all this trouble to welcome us? I gotta say I'm impressed." He looked over who all were in the room, and what he saw were some rather pretty ladies.

His eyes first fell upon the girl with black hair tied up in pigtails with two blue ribbons. She was quite slender looking with a frilled skirt and despite the look of utter shock on her face her red eyes were nice to look at, she was pretty good looking when it was all said and done. Helping things definitely had to be the bit of exposed cleavage at the top...why did so many girls love doing that here? Either way, he wasn't complaining. Next to her was a girl who was a...mini version of her? A sister if he had to wager a guess. Like her older counterpart her outfit was just about all black with some white stripes and bits of grey here and there. For all intents and purposes she was almost an exact copy of the first girl; they even had the same eye color to boot, like her older sister, she too had shocked face.

Eyeing up the next group of ladies, he saw a petite girl decked out in white. Her eyes were a nice dark blue, she had light brown hair and probably the most notable thing about her was that she had a rather large hat on her head. Clinging to her sides were two younger children, twins by the look of it, one wearing a blue overcoat, the other wearing a pink one. They were nearly identical if not for the child in blue having shorter hair than her pink counterpart, overall they were pretty adorable, though he couldn't help but think they were a bit overdressed, it certainly wasn't that cold when he got here. Like the two before, these three were also shocked at the revelation.

Off to the side of them were two girls. One with lilac hair and wearing a parka dress, purple eyes and two large d-pad hair clips, the only other thing of note is that is that she wore light blue and white thigh high stockings along with purple and blue shoes. The girl next to her had to be the older of the two. While she had the same lilac colored hair, same purple eyes, but only one D-pad hair clip and instead of a parka wore a sailor uniform. Like her younger sister, she had thigh stockings too, but hers were pink and white instead and she sported some white boots.

Lastly in this little room wide scan was Vert. He hadn't paid too much attention before during the video conference but Vert had a rather...mesmerizing figure.

 _*BOING*_

Yep. Mesmerizing was the right word, totally. Her sizeable...assets aside, her dark blue eyes and long blonde hair really made her quite the looker. Couple that with her nice figure and the green and white dress she had that accentuated said figure and nearly any man would drool at the sight of her, and Nova couldn't really blame anyone for doing so.

"What do you mean you're 'technically' Gray Heart? You either are or you aren't!" The girl in white said coldly, the way she spoke was surprising considering her calm looking exterior

"Well I mean...I guess I am? But I'm most definitely not at the same time? It's really weird when you get right down to it." Nova replied running his hands through his hair "But before we continue who are you all? I already know Vert, but you said these are other CPUs?"

"Oh right..." Vert said sighing "It would be rather rude if we didn't all introduce ourselves."

"I agree" said the black haired girl "I'm Noire, also known as Black Heart, the CPU of Lastation, this is my little sister Uni."

"Er...hi there, nice to meet you?"

"Black Heart...you sure she isn't evil?" Nova joked

"I-I-I'm not evil!" she yelled turning a slight shade of red

"I'm Blanc also known as White Heart, The CPU of Lowee, this is Rom and Ram."

The two children didn't say anything but instead moved a bit closer to Blanc

"Hey, I don't bite." Nova said giving them a cheerful grin

"If you come near me or Rom then I'm gonna bite you!" Ram replied putting on her meanest face possible

"Uh..."

"Don't mind them; they're a bit weary around males." Blanc sighed

Nova nodded and looked over to the lilac haired ladies

"And you two are...?"

"I'm Neptune buster, CPU Purple Heart of Planeptune, and don't you forget it! I know you're game and I ain't fallin' for it!"

"...My game?" Nova repeated lost

"Yeah, in all our past adventures, whenever we meet a guy, he ends up being a bad guy or a creep or a sicko or somethin'! I'm watching you, so no funny business!"

"Um...Don't mind my older sister, she doesn't mean any harm. Anyway, I'm Nepgear, I'm the CPU candidate of Planeptune."

"Nice to meet you and...wait Neptune is the older sister seriously?"

"Yes, it may seem like I'm older, but Neptune is my older sister and she's a good one at that."

"Aw thanks , now back to the matter at hand. You there evil guy, what's your diabolical plan?!"

"Okay first, once again, I'm not evil and second, I was told to come here by Vert."

"But...when I spoke to you, I was most certainly speaking to a woman." Vert said still lost

"You're right. Look, just let me explain."

 _ **One explanation later...**_

"Goodness, that's quite the story." Nepgear said echoing everyone's sentiments as they all nodded

"So...you're from another world?" Noire asked, making sure she heard Nova right

"That's correct. And some god from my world seemingly set me up with this deal to help Grise or Gray Heart, whichever you prefer to call her out and help run the nation. Good thing I did too, I don't think Nitroplus could handle the whole thing alone."

"I still say he's evil." Neptune pouted "I know his game, he comes from a different world and then he tries to win us all over and do lewd things with us!"

"Come now Neptune, don't be silly." Vert chided "I for one think it's nice to...sort of have a male CPU among us."

"Oh man, he's already getting to Vert!" Neptune quickly leapt to her feet and ran towards Nova, grabbing his shirt and shaking him "You stop that right now! You stop working your lewd dude magic on Vert!"

Nova had no idea what Neptune was on about, really he didn't, but the girl was becoming slightly annoying with her constant accusations, so what did he decide to do? Why tease her of course!

"Damn, you caught me." Nova muttered

"That's right...wait I did?!" Neptune replied genuinely shocked

"Though...I suppose you are rather cute yourself" Nova said gently grabbing the small goddess's hand and holding them tightly, he pulled her in close to his chest, the warmth from his body coming over her as he hugged her tightly. All Neptune could do was let out a little squeak of surprise as he leaned into her, his mouth stopping directly in front of her ear and saying in a very low whisper "Maybe we can forge a treaty with just our bodies~."

The color on Neptune's face was probably the reddest anyone had ever seen before she broke free of the hug and bolted out the door. Everyone else who had watched the whole debacle were a bit red in the cheeks themselves although they kept it together a lot better.

"W-wait Sis, come back!" Nepgear shouted going after her, with those two gone Nova turned back to the others, letting out a sigh

"Alright, shall we continue with this whole conference thing? Though to be honest I'm not sure where to go from here, wasn't expecting to meet the other goddesses so soon."

"Oh well, before that, we were gonna play some games if that's alright with you." Vert said

"Oh uh...sure, I don't mind. "

"Splendid, follow me to the entertainment room then everyone!"

The group all followed Vert to the entertainment room and when they got there, Nova had to admit that he was pretty impressed. Laid out within the room were various snacks of all sorts, several beanbag chairs all set up around a rather enormous plasma screen tv, which had game consoles all set up around it. To put it bluntly: This was a gamer's paradise if Nova had ever seen one. It was a room that one could waste hours- no, _days_ in. "This is amazing!" Nova said looking around in awe "I don't think I've ever seen a room like this before back home."

"I'm glad you like it, what do you think we should play first?" Vert asked

"Oh I know!" Ram chirped up "Let's play Super Smash Sisters 4! I still need to beat Rom from before!"

"Come now Ram, we should let Nova decide, he's the guest of honor." Blanc softly chided

"I don't mind, sounds like it could be fun."

Ram let out a triumphant shout as everyone began setting up for a round. Neptune and Nepgear weren't back yet, so it was only a 7 player match. The match began and though Nova was new he managed to get a win the first time by playing as some portly plumber guy. Though he had to admit he could see why Ram had wanted to get Rom back, the little girl was a monster with Princess Pomegranate and she had the second highest amount of kills and Nova had only managed to beat her because she mistimed a guard against a boom-bomb. A second match started but before then, Rom turned to Nova

"Um... ...please go easy on me this time?" She asked softly, which caused Nova's heart to stop momentarily before he nodded. She wanted him to go easy on her? With how good she was? Nova honestly couldn't tell if she was trying to trick him or not, but he decided to ease up, trying not as hard to target her like everyone else had been doing (and Rom was still holding up well against them) but this proved to be his downfall as the CPU candidate ended up the victor of the second match.

"This is all your fault Nova!" Ram yelled pointing a finger at him accusingly

"What did I do?!" He replied confused by her statement

"You went easy on Ram and kept attacking everyone else; you shouldn't have fallen for her trick!"

"She's got you there." Uni said as the character select screen popped up again "Rom has done that to me before and I paid the price."

Nova couldn't think of any retort and just chose his next character, some dude named Mike with a rather large broadsword. The third match got under way with Blanc coming out on top this top and Nova in second. A fourth match would have happened, but Neptune and Nepgear had reappeared with Chika in tow.

"That's him Chika, if you don't stop him, he'll use his lewd powers on Vert!

Without saying a word, Chika leapt at Nova, a spear coming from who knows where. He managed to call forth his greatsword and deflect the attack sending Chika reeling back

"What the shit woman, why are you attacking me and even worse why do it when there are children around?!"

"I've been told that you are attempting to make some...untoward advances to Vert...and I can't allow that." She said with a creepy smile

"Oh for the love of...look I'm not trying to hit on Vert or anyone here okay, can you all vouch for me on this girls?" Nova said with exasperated sigh

"He's telling the truth." Noire sighed "It's just Neptune being Neptune and frankly I'm surprised you listened to her."

At those words Chika couldn't help but blush in embarrassment "Chika, please apologize to our guest." Vert said with surprisingly serious tone, it was almost as if she were a mother disciplining her child, it was enough to make Chika shrink back a bit

"R-right, please forgive me ." She said with a light bow

"It's no big deal. Why not hang out play some games with us?"

"Oh I couldn't, I have things to do and-"

"Nonsense, join us Chika." Vert said, her voice returning to its usual softness

"Well...if you insist."

With that, the other three girls joined in on the fun, a few more rounds of Super Smash Sisters were played, before everyone switched over to the Lastation 4, to which Neptune decided to get revenge on Nova by playing Nova in a one on one match of RazRed. Unfortunately for her, he'd managed to beat her.

"What?! How'd I lose, I'm the protagonist, I never lose!" she exclaimed

"I'm willing to go another match if you want Neptune." Nova replied with a chuckle

"You're on! I don't care if you're the centerpiece of this fanfic I'm winning no matter what!"

Tilting his head to the side in confusion at those words, Nova and Neptune went at it again, which led to her losing once more...and then another time and another time after that, which caused her to have a ragequit moment, so she went off to have some snacks to cool off. Despite how crazy Neptune seemed, Nova had to admit that hanging out with her and the other CPUs was pretty fun, the rest of the night was shaping up to be pretty fun.

 **END**

* * *

 **And so another chapter ends. I hope you all enjoyed this one, I'll be honest I'm nervous about writing Neptune, mostly because well...it's Neptune and she's so damn spontaneous sometimes it can be hard to pin her down. As a note, if there are ever any particular things you want to ask about the story or characters don't hesitate to ask, I can answer them via the fun facts. And now on to the fact of the day...or uh...chapter I guess.**

 **Fun Fact: Like the other goddesses (except Neptune of course) Grise's name is French for well...Gray. To add to this, Her name is the female version the same as the other goddesses. I wonder how French players feel about the character's names literally being Green,Black,White and in Histoire's case, History.**

 **See you next Chapter~!**


	6. Chapter 6: That Escalated Quickly

**And I'm back! Sorry this one is coming a month later, but I've been busy enjoying the holidays and what presents I got (HDTVs reallly are awesome). That being said, lets get into it.**

 **Chapter 6: That Escalated Quickly**

* * *

It was early in the morning in the Leanbox Basilicom. The previous night had gone by rather quickly with the CPUs (and Nova) playing a myriad assortment of games and pigging out on a whole bunch of snacks, Neptune herself had laid claim to all the pudding and no one dared tried to take any from her, probably on account of the glares she'd shoot at anyone who tried. At some point throughout it all Gray Heart had woken up (or whatever you'd call it) and nearly freaked out attempting to hijack Nova's body to beat the CPUs brains in while screaming about betrayals and set ups. Truly, she was far too paranoid for her own good. However, Nova managed to calm her down and eventually things went back to normal for the rest of the night. Right now, the other CPUs were all enjoying a hot bath thanks to Vert deciding to have her own personal bathhouse installed not too long ago. Unfortunately, this meant that Nova was stuck waiting around for them to finish up and they were taking forever, it'd been at least an hour now.

"What a pain..." Nova muttered to himself as she sat in the entertainment room watching some random cartoon show "I wish the girls would hurry up already

" _Well you know...if this is really bothering you that much I do have an idea."_ Gray Heart said with a small giggle _"I think you'll like it."_

"What kind of idea is that?"

 _ **Moments later...**_

Gray Heart strolled into the large bath; her soft black hair was no longer in its usual ponytail but instead was completely down reaching down to about the middle of her back. The room was thick with steam making it difficult for Gray Heart to see somewhat, but still she was able to find the other girls due to all the chatter that was going on.

"N-Neptune, where are you grabbing?!" Noire yelled as she tried to slap the hyperactive CPU's hands away.

"Aw come on Noire! We're all friends here; it's only natural that we rub each other all over, besides we have to meet the implied yuri quota for the story!"

"I don't care about that and if you've got to touch someone go touch your sister!"

"W-why me?!" Nepgear exclaimed in a panic as she recoiled in an attempt to protect herself

Vert and Blanc were merely watching along with Uni and the twins, the whole spectacle, which caused Vert to chuckle while Blanc wasn't really paying any attention at all.

"Oh I know, we should check on Uni's chest again! Ram said with a sly grin on her face

"We should" Ram agreed "Just to make sure she hasn't grown too much."

"W-what, n-no you two we aren't doing that again!" But it was too late, the twins had already leapt at the CPU candidate "B-Blanc, call them off! Help me please!" Uni pleaded, but the cry fell on deaf ears as Blanc watched with a slight smirk on her face, the entire scene going on was a pretty funny one all things considered, but it all came to a stop when everyone looked at Gray Heart as she sat down on one of the small steps and began soak and cover herself in soap. A few minutes passed before she finally realized what was happening.

"What's the matter...?" She asked looking around at everyone, who all remained silent before Blanc spoke up

"It's just that no one here is sure how to react. I mean, technically you're a man entering a shower full of women you know."

"If that's the case, then don't come near me, the steam is doing a good job keeping you all obscured

" _I dunno, I can sorta see Noire...nice curves."_ Nova chuckled

"Except for you Noire, he can sort of see you."

"WHAT?!" she cried moving away from Gray Heart some hoping the steam would obscure her

At that Neptune piped up "I see what's going on here, Nova is totally trying to get a look at our naughty bits and he put Gray Heart up to it! See, I knew he was evil!"

"No you twit, you all were taking forever to bathe, and frankly both Nova and I agree that a good bath is a proper way to start the day, now please, leave me be. If you're all so worried about Nova seeing you, then keep away, I'll even leave the bath first if you're all so bothered."

A tense quiet echoed throughout the bath, before finally Noire spoke up "I guess that's fine, but don't move from that spot, I don't want him looking at me!" The other girls all agreed with this notion, the generally cheery atmosphere returning to the bath.

" _Huh, you know, Blanc is a lot cuter than I initially thought."_

"Blanc, take two steps back please."

The brown hair CPU turned a light shade of pink before complying "Keep that idiot under control!" She shouted

" _Hey come on Gray Heart, I didn't see anything but her face!"_

"A gentleman shouldn't look at a woman's body if she doesn't want him to."

" _But bringing me in here was your idea!"_

"Well, if I have to be honest...I just really wanted to take a hot bath."

Nova made some...odd angry noises inside Gray Heart's head, which caused the goddess to laugh, Eventually Nepgear came towards Gray Heart, or at least close enough to where she thought she'd be properly obscured. "Excuse me, um...Gray Heart, I've been wondering something."

"What's that?" Gray asked with a raised eyebrow

"Well um, you and Nova have been sharing a body for a while now and this whole bath thing has me wondering...how do you handle baths back at your Basilicom? I mean, do you just close your eyes while Nova...you know?"

At this Gray Heart's entire body turned red. She'd indeed seen Nova naked while he washed and both of them had agreed to not talk about when that had happened.

"Um...well...that is to say, I-I may have seen um...some things but..." Gray Heart spluttered as she tried her best to repress that particular memory.

"Oh goodness, you're turning red, maybe you should get out of the bath?"

Gray Heart nodded hurriedly, scurrying out of the bath and leaving the others to continue washing, the other goddesses laughing at the whole ordeal and seeing it as a bit of just desserts for bringing Nova into the bath. Not making things any better was the fact that after getting out and letting Nova take control once more, he began pestering her on if she were really that impressed with a certain area, causing Gray Heart to ignore him and vehemently remain silent. Eventually the other goddesses had entered the room and according to Vert, it was time for breakfast, but instead of it being homemade this time around, Vert had made reservations at Club Leanbox, a fancy restaurant that was extremely popular as of late. Without wasting a moment, the group all made their way there, with Vert leading the way.

Once they arrived, they were greeted by a nicely dressed man who welcomed them inside. The entire inside had quite the regal feel to it, with a dark red carpet that was so soft, Nova could even feel it through his shoes, the curtains were the same red with the same gold trim as well and to top off everything, there was a nice jazzy tune playing to help set the mood. There were two tables reserved for them, but as Nova looked around, he noticed that there were no other patrons besides them, when the waiter walked up to take their order he couldn't help but question as to why.

"Lady Green Heart rented out the entire restaurant for the morning. When she told us that not only would our own CPU be dining here, but also the CPU from 4 other nations, we simply couldn't refuse." The young man said as he took everyone's order, leaving afterwards to get it all taken care of.

"You really went all out." Nova said glancing at Vert. She and the other CPUs had deigned to sit with him while the candidates would be with one another

"Of course, this is a diplomatic gathering after all, it's only proper I give my guests the proper treatment." Vert replied smiling calmly

"But all we've done is play video games..." Nova muttered low enough so that no one could hear.

"Well...there is one thing that has been troubling me. Noire said looking surprisingly more serious than usual "Nova, you said that Gray Heart was killed right?"

"That's what she told me, and I don't think she was lying at all."

"Right...but _what_ exactly killed her?"

Without saying anything, Nova switches places with Gray Heart, the CPU having a pained expression on her face. "I...don't know what it was exactly. But it was a sword that glowed crimson...and when I was run through it felt like my energy left me in an instant. The weapon was far from normal, especially if it could fell a goddess in one blow."

The other CPUs all looked at one another with shocked expressions, even Neptune of all people was stricken silent by what she'd heard

"U-uh guys, that's sounding a lot like-"Neptune began

"Well talk about this later, for now, let's enjoy breakfast, this kind of thing isn't a good topic to discuss out in the open."

The other Goddesses agreed, Gray Heart deciding to retreat unless she was needed again. Eventually the food arrived with the goddesses getting all sorts of breakfast foods. Noire had pancakes, Blanc had eggs and sausage, Vert had decided to go with French toast, Nova had decided to go with a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich and Neptune...had pudding flavored pancakes. Nova really wanted to know how they even managed to make that, but maybe it was better if he just didn't ask at all. As the group began eating away at their food, Blanc spoke up suddenly

"Excuse me, but I'm curious." She said to Nova as he swallowed some food

"Curious about what, is there something on my face?" He replied

"No, but...you're from a different world right? And from what I can gather, your world isn't like ours. There's no Planeptune or Lowee there right?"

Nova shook his head "Nope! None of those places exist where I'm from. If I had to wager, the biggest places are probably The USA, Europe, and Asia.

"What, no Planeptune?!" Neptune exclaimed "That's it, your world blows"

"Gee thanks for throwing my home under the bus."

"Never mind her" Blanc interjected "Tell me more about this world of yours...which of those nations are you from?"

" _I'm a bit curious myself now. With all that's been going on, I never really asked."_ Gray Heart said

"I'm from United States of America, USA for short. It's a nice enough place, it has its downsides, but still I don't think I'd want to live anywhere else."

"I see..." Blanc replied writing something down on a notepad she had "And what about the other places?"

"Well I've only been to Japan once and that ended up with the thunder goddess Raijin trying to kill me..."

"Why on earth would she attack you randomly?" Noire asked, her face showing complete surprise at the revelation.

Nova sighed "Look, let's just say it has to do with who I am and leave it at that. Thankfully, I had some help at the time and Raijin will hopefully never do that again."

" _The gods of your world sound like assholes."_

Nova couldn't really disagree with that statement. Gray Heart was right to a certain degree

"So what about this Europe place? What's that like?" Blanc continued

"Well, that place sure is dreary. It rains a lot and in Scotland, there's this place called Loch Ness with a mythical sea monster living in it!" Nova said excitedly

"Oh my, how terrifying, were you attacked?" Vert asked

"No, it's pretty harmless, I mean, some friends and I were on a boat and we were right next to it, it didn't even try attacking us. That being said though, that's only part of Europe, and I haven't been to any other places there."

"Hmmm, thanks, that'll do for now." Blanc said as she finished writing some things down and went back to eating

"Sure, no problem, if you have any other questions doesn't hesitate to ask." Nova said going back to his food

" _I wonder what that was about, I mean, she was writing things down._ "

"Don't worry about it." Nova muttered

The rest of breakfast went without a hitch, with the CPUs all making casual conversation. After they were all finally done eating (Neptune _really_ went to town on the pudding pancakes) with Vert footing the bill, the blonde haired CPU decided to take everyone to one of Leanbox's most prestigious arcades, when they got there, Nova was left in utter awe at all the games that were on display, he took a cautious step forward, the numerous lights and sounds, the carpet underneath him feeling extremely comfortable, Vert couldn't help but let out a smug smile at his reaction.

"I take it you like the arcade?" she said

"Like it? This place looks amazing!" Nova exclaimed in excitement "The arcade back in my hometown has nothing on this place!"

"I see, I'm glad to hear you like it, be sure to hold on to this." Vert began handing out cards to everyone, which allowed them 'VIP' status for the arcade. Basically, they had an infinite play time which is something that Nova was quite grateful for. Everyone quickly dispersed agreeing to meet up at the entrance when they'd all finished playing whatever games they wanted. Nova decided to wander for a bit, seeing what all they had, from dancing games to shooters, to some VR games, this place had damn near everything for an arcade

" _Hmmm, maybe I should push for an arcade to be built when we get back to Steamport, this actually looks pretty nice."_

"Steamport doesn't have an arcade? Nova asked

" _Nope, usually because a lot of gamers prefer consoles or PCs, but this place is pretty packed, even at this time of day."_

Nova continued walking along until he found some crane games, these things are always infamous for their skill...and their ability to screw the player over at the last moment. Rom and Ram were huddled together at one, with Ram doing her best to try and win a small yellow mouse like creature.

"Just a bit more and...darn it!" Ram exclaimed as the toy dropped before it reached the little chute it would have slid out of.

"Hey, I'll give it a shot!" Nova said walking over to the two CPU candidates, unfortunately, when they saw him coming over Ram stood in front of Rom her arms spread in an effort to protect her

"You stay away from us you big idiot! I don't care who you're a boy or...girl...thing or whatever! You're dangerous just like Neptune said, come on Rom!"

"Uh...okay." The gentle twin said before being pulled away to somewhere that wasn't here.

" _You sure do have a way with children Nova."_

"Oh shut up Gray Heart." He growled deciding to try the machine anyway, he figured that he may as well go for the same toy that Rom and Ram had been trying for since it was already at a pretty good angle all things considered. He stuck his card into a small slot and got to playing. It only took him 3 tries to get it, which was good because he any longer and he'd probably have ragequit.

" _Not bad, that took less time than I thought."_

"Well you know me, I've got the skills."

" _Sure...maybe next time you can do it in one shot instead of three."_ Gray Heart joked

"Whatever, let's go play something else."

" _Gonna give that to the kids? They'd probably like it."_

"Not a bad idea, it'd make a good peace offering I'm sure."

Once more Nova was off exploring the place he stuffed the toy into his inventory, he'd came across Uni and Nepgear who were playing some shooter, with Nepgear having died as soon as he walked up.

"You gotta be quicker than that Nepgear!" Uni said as she effortlessly took out all the enemies on screen with one shot each.

"Oh hey there Nova, are you enjoying yourself?" Nepgear greeted him

"Yeah, this play is amazing, how about you, having a good time?"

"Oh yeah, I'm having a great time, Uni and I are just playing Time Dilemma 8."

"Come on Nepgear, stop flirting and get back in the game!" Uni chastised

"F-flirting?! I'm not flirting at all! Why don't you play Nova?"

Shrugging, Nova agreed and grabbed the gun, sliding his card into the slot, he had a full health bar and began taking shots at the enemy alongside Uni. The next half hour consisted of the two going through the all the levels and to be bluntly: Uni was a beast at Time Dilemma, her shots were all cool and calculated, she take each enemy she aimed at down with a well-timed burst of bullets, while Nova meanwhile would get hit, miss, or heck, even die a few times, which resulted in Uni berating him for not watching his surroundings carefully. At the end of it all, Uni had an accuracy rating of 98%, while Nova was barely above 50%. Needless to say, he was completely impressed by her ability with a firearm.

"You're pretty good Uni." Nova said looking at the screen still "I don't think I've ever seen a score so high on a shooter."

"It's still not enough." She sighs "If it were Noire, she'd have 100% easily."

"Seriously...?"

"Well, Noire is pretty good at a lot of things." Nepgear added "But I don't think she'd get as high a score as you did Uni."

The petite black-haired CPU let out a groan, she appreciated Nepgear's words, but it didn't do anything to help fix the inadequateness she was feeling right now. With the game done, she and Nepgear went off to do some other activity, leaving the purple-haired boy alone again. That being the case, he wandered around some more until he found Neptune playing a game of 'Whack-a-Vert'; she was doing her best to hit every head that popped out, though she was missing a fair few in her attempts. When the game was over, she quickly snatched up the tickets, stuffing them in her pockets.

"Ah, it's you!" Neptune exclaimed pointing a finger at Nova

"Me!" he replied chuckling to himself

"No time for jokes mister, pick up a hammer and play the game next to me! She commanded

"Will you stop saying I'm evil if I do help?"

"Possibly, now get it in gear we got tickets to win!"

Deciding to relent to her whim, Nova moves over to the other Whack-a-Vert game and he and Neptune get to work on smacking as many of the cute little Vert heads as they possibly can. The two of them are at it for what seems like hours, the little jingle that plays drilling its way into Nova's brain as he and Neptune continue playing and collecting tickets.

"What are we even collecting all these tickets for anyway?" Nova asks after what had to have been their 15th play

"The greatest of all prizes, now less talking and more playing my noble companion, we've prizes to win!

Nova let out a sigh, well; at least he's a 'noble companion' now and not 'evil pervert.' He lifted up his hammer and got back to gaming.

 _ **1 hour later...**_

"Sis, it's time for us to get going!" said Nepgear as she came running over from wherever she'd been.

"Hang on , Just...one...last...hit!" Neptune said as she smacked one final Vert head, and more tickets filed out of the machine.

"Goodness, what are you going to do with all those tickets?"

"That's what I'd like to know too." Nova chimed in, picking up his bundle of tickets and following after Neptune.

"You're kidding." Noire said flabbergasted "You're telling me you racked up 2,000 tickets and it was all for _pudding_?!" the group was walking the midday streets of Leanbox, making their way back to the Basilicom, as Noire stated, Neptune had been saving those tickets up to buy all the pudding she could...which turned out to be the entire stock the arcade had. The best they could do was allow Neptune to take the small fridge that been behind the counter for prizes and then they'd ship the rest to the Leanbox Basilicom.

"That's right!" Neptune replies giddily "With the help of my stalwart companion I was able to get a ton of tickets, more than I needed actually. I might even save em for a return trip!"

"I'm surprised you helped her at all." Noire said looking at Nova, to which he rubbed his head sheepishly

"H-hey now, I didn't know she was doing this all for pudding! Well, that and she'd agreed to stop calling me evil, so it all works out."

"That arcade was fun but it sucks Rom and I couldn't get the Sparkichu doll." Ram said to Blanc

"Well, we can try again next time, I'm sure we can stop by for a bit tomorrow if we have the time." Blanc replies placing a hand gently on Ram's head

"Oh yeah, that reminds me!" Nova said clapping his hands together, he reached into his inventory and pulled out the 'Sparkichu' doll. "Here, you two looked like you really wanted it, so after you left I got it for you."

For a few moments, the twins are merely staring before Rom gingerly puts her hands out and takes it.

"R-Rom, what are you doing, he's a bad guy!" Ram said indignantly while point at him

"B-but it's cute..." She muttered

"Ram be nice, Nova didn't have to do what he did." Blanc softly chides

"B-but..."

" _Ram."_ Blanc says a bit more harshly

The pink clothed twin falls silent and begrudgingly accepts the gift. Eventually, everyone is back at the Basilicom, the candidates going off to play games while Nova and the other goddesses go to their own room for negotiations to (finally) take place. As they all sit down, Chika sets out some drinks for everyone, putting Nova's down with a bit more force as she shoots a quick glare at him.

"Thank you Chika, you may go now."

"Of course, call me if you require anything else darling." With that she makes a calm exit

" _That woman scares me..."_ Gray Heart mumbles

"Same here, without a doubt." Nova replied

"Right, well let's get things underway." Vert said, her voice becoming stern "I'm sorry if things have seemed a bit...unorthodox, but I thought it would be wise to greet a new CPU with some fun rather than jumping straight into politics. I hope that everything has been to your liking?"

"It's been fine for me, but I should probably let Gray Heart take over for all of this." Nova said before Gray Heart was sitting before the rest of the goddesses.

"Nice of you to join us." Blanc said softly with just a small hint of sarcasm

"Right then, let's skip the pleasantries and get to the point: What was that blade that killed me? You all clearly knew what it was. "

An oppressive aura permeated the room as whatever positive atmosphere that was in the room was quickly drained. Noire was the first to speak after a long silence as the other four goddesses stared at one another

"Anti-sharicite, without a doubt _that's_ what killed you. It's the only thing that can kill a goddess outright like that. Just being near one is enough to make us feel weaker, touching it, let alone being stabbed by it is a death sentence."

Gray Heart let out an audible gulp at that explanation "I see...I wasn't aware there was such a thing that existed in Gamindustri."

"This begs the question though" Blanc interrupts " _Who_ were the ones who attacked you and how did they manage to weaponize the anti-crystal? I don't think you could make an entire weapon out of just a little shard."

"I don't think I have any enemies..." Gray Heart stated as she rubbed her chin in contemplation "The only ones I can think of who would try something so drastic would be the old members of ASIC, but Nitroplus and I destroyed their little operation years ago."

"Wait ASIC is still relevant?! I thought we'd seen the last of them back when Kurome was around!" Neptune piped up, making an exaggerated expression that could be best be described as simply O_O. Don't ask me how she does it.

Gray Heart let out a sigh "I don't know about here, but back when I was getting my bearings on well...being alive, ASIC were actually quite active on the PC continent. Nitroplus and I spent months of hard work weeding them out and arresting them all."

Blanc snorted "So you're saying it's not them then."

"It'd be very unlikely. I don't think any stragglers were left around either. So whoever this is has to be someone else, but I can't of anyone who'd want to go this far, Steamport doesn't really have any enemies..."

"Okay, well we'll come back to that tangent later." Vert said "I've got a rather important question that has been lingering on my mind."

"This isn't about about trying to make Planeptune open up its own butler café is it?" Neptune deadpanned

"No, though you _should_ get on that."

"Never."

"Right well, my question is this: You wanted a peace treaty between Leanbox and Steamport, why is that Gray Heart?"

At this Gray Heart shrinks back a bit "Well...that is...I just wanted to protect my nation. I do not mean to brag, but we all know where my share count stands, the last thing I'd want is a war to break out. Nitroplus told me what you'd all been through together and I don't think I could withstand a battle against four other goddesses. With Nitroplus being friends with Vert, I figured it'd be good to have at least one on my side in case things got that bad."

The room was quiet for a moment as the other goddesses all let things sink in, a full minute or two had to have passed before finally the silence was broken...

"PFT...HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Neptune burst into laughter

By crippling laughter!

"W-what are you laughing about?!" Gray Heart asked incredulously

Blanc had a snide smile on her face "Someone's a bit full of themselves."

Noire sighed "If this were a long time ago, you might be right, we might have waged war on you...but we've all learned from past mistakes, that war is not the best option for share acquisition, even Neptune for as much of a bone head as she is knows that much."

Gray Heart turned to look at the still laughing CPU "I find that hard to believe..."

"We all do." Vert deadpanned

"He-hey, I'm feeling a bit belittled here..." Neptune said with a sigh

"Now then let's move on-"

Vert was cut off by the loud beeping emitting from Gray Heart's pocket...? Inventory? Do those leotards have pockets anywhere? Oh who cares, the point is her phone was ringing.

"Oh, sorry about that." Gray Heart said as she moved to silence it...however she stopped when she noticed that it was Nitroplus calling her

" _Hmmm, Nitroplus, I hope everything's alright."_ Nova said

Gray Heart tapped the answer icon and a slightly tired sounding Nitroplus was on the other end.

"Oh good, I got in touch in this stupid place." She hissed "Okay look, I found a very big lead on who was behind your attack, but that isn't important right now. Are the other goddesses there?"

"yes they are but what's wrong-"

"Good." Nitroplus cut her off, listen tell them to get some of their guards and do some looking around their nations, according to some jackass I talked to here, there may be some attacks on the other nations and-"

Before she could finish, holographic screen appeared in front of everyone, a woman with sky blue hair and cerulean eyes looking frantic. "I'm sorry, but is Lady Blanc there?!" She yelled

"Calm down Mina, what's wrong?"

"It's...I don't know what's going on, but there's an attack on Lowee happening! Monsters are attacking with some weird man talking about 'the true gospel 'as well!"

" _WHAT?!"_

"Dammit...it's already starting." Nitroplus said from the phone "Look, I'll bring you up to speed later once this has all settled Gray Heart, go help Lowee for now!"

 **END**

* * *

 **Another chapter goes by. Not much to say here I guess, other than as usual I hope you all had fun reading. Again, sorry for the whole 'Nearly a month of nothing'. Comments and Criticisms are always welcomed. Now onto the little fact of this chapter**

 **Fun Fact: Nova is actually a two sword weapon user. The problem is well...he sorta didn't have those brought with him when he wound up in Gamindustri. The reason he's actually decent with Gray Heart's weapon is because well...it's just another sword, but bigger. Surprisingly light though. Another way to explain that is to basically think of him as Fighter from 3.5 D &D/Pathfinder.**


	7. Chapter 7: Nitroplus's Longest Night

**So hey! Guess whose back again after nearly a month since the last chapter! I wanna say sorry for that, but I write quite a few other things in my spare time, and before I knew it, January was nearly over! That being said, at the very least expect a new chapter monthly unless I suddenly get some sort of extra energy and start pumping them out a bit quickly, though with my other story (Favor Trade) I doubt that'll be happening. That aside, enjoy!**

 **Chapter 7: Nitroplus's Longest Night**

* * *

"Of course, now get going, you've got a long flight ahead of you." Nitroplus said, she watched for a few moments as Nova transformed into Gray Heart and flew off, waiting until she was a small speck in the clouds before silently turning towards the door to head back inside. She'd finally gotten some sort of lead as to who Gray Heart's killer may be. It turned out that there had been some shadowy figures heading into the old Pii Shii Factory or so one of the spies that worked for Gray Heart said...

Because of this, Nitroplus had called upon a good friend to help her out in figuring out just who was behind all this. As she walked down the halls, said friend floated up to her with a smile on her face.

"Ah Nitroplus, it's so good to see you again! Meat."

"Same here Raw Meat, I hope I'm not troubling you by pulling you away for this." Nitroplus replied, giving her best friend a small pat on the head

"Not at all, this is for the good of Steamport, I'm more than happy to help. Meat."

"Thanks, I'm really grateful."

The two made their way down to the front desk of the Basilicom; a few guards would be waiting for her there to accompany her on this little expedition of hers. It was going to be a small group, only her, the spy who relayed the information, Raw Meat, and maybe two guards, any bigger than that and they ran the risk of being too big a group and easily noticeable. Once they were in the front, they saw the guards all clad in gray and black robes together making idle conversation.

"I'm tellin' you man, give me five minutes with Lady Gray Heart and I bet I could land a date." One of them said

"I doubt it, I mean, do you really want to? She's kind of...sort of a guy now you know? It'd be totally weird." One of his compatriots replied

"Ah who cares about that, at the end of the day, it's still Lady Gray Heart and I'd still go out with her in a heartbeat! If I do I good enough job on this expedition, maybe I'll even get a kiss!"

"Ahem." Nitroplus uttered loud enough for the guards to hear. They all turned to her with shocked expressions before haphazardly forming a line and saluting.

"L-lady Nitroplus, w-we're glad to see you!"

"Right, I'll pretend I didn't hear what you guys were talking about. Now then, are you ready to move out?"

"Y-yes ma'am!"

With that out of the way (and Nitroplus sighing heavily) the group began their march out of Steamport and towards the Pii Shii factory. It was going to take them all day to reach it; they couldn't warp there since only the spy had been there within the last six months and everyone else present hadn't been there for some time or at all. As the group travelled along, several times Nitroplus had to reprimand her allies whenever they'd start talking about Gray Heart...usually making some remark about her butt or...something else. Even once or twice they said something about her too! Seriously, it was almost as if they _liked_ that she would scold them.

Eventually, they were just outside the factory. It was just as derelict looking as it was before and though the sun had long gone down, Nitroplus couldn't help but be surprised that such a place was still standing. She turned to the spy wanting confirmation that this is where he saw whoever it was.

"This is the place for sure. Two guys came in, not sure who they were, but they seemed sort of sketchy."

"Okay, we'll stake out the area, once we see one of them go in, we follow after them and see what's going on."

 _ **Several hours later**_

Nitroplus looked through some binoculars with the night vision setting, it was well into the middle of the night now and she had no idea how long they'd been out there, the guards had all nodded off, but she and Raw Meat were still keeping vigilant, though she had to admit she was getting a bit hungry herself...maybe this was a dud after all? She was about to call the whole thing off when she noticed a figure heading inside. She couldn't tell who it was exactly...but it was definitely a man wearing a white jacket at the very least.

"Hey you guys, wake up, we got something!" She whispered loudly, her entourage all groggily woke up, gathering their senses as Nitroplus continued watching. The man looked around apprehensively before entering the factory. This was their chance!

"Alright you guys, let's move, I'll take point. Spy person, you're behind me and-

"It's Larry." The spy sighed.

"What...?"

"My name, it's Larry."

Okay, Larry, you're behind me and those two guys

"I'm chuck!" The first guard replied grinning

"And I'm Oscar!" The other chimed in

"Okay fine, Larry, you're behind me while Chuck and Oscar will bring up the rear, okay?" Nitroplus asked annoyed

"Yes ma'am!" They replied saluting

 _Man working with glorified NPCs is a pain in the ass._ Nitroplus thought as her group moved out, they slowly went inside, looking for any kind of clue as to what might be out of place, but things were pitch black for the most part. The place was completely derelict looking all around. However, the man who went in was nowhere to be seen...how was that possible?

"Hey I think I found something!" Chuck called as he walked over to some boxes, he moved them aside to see a glowing green button of sorts, one you normally wouldn't notice, given all the boxes, but Chuck must have just seen the glowing barely. He tapped it and a section of the wall slid up revealing an elevator.

"Oh man, this is getting really weird Oscar muttered as they all filed in.

"No doubt about that...why'd we take this job again?" Larry asked

"Praise from Lady Gray Heart." Chuck said plainly

"Oh right...yeah."

Nitroplus sighed "Just keep it together will you? Stay together and we should be fine."

 _I hope so anyway..._

The four finally exited off of the elevator only to be greeted by a long white hallway that lead down to a singular corner for them to turn. Not seeing any other choice, Nitroplus and her allies continued traveling along them, taking whatever turns they decided on. The place was a surprisingly large, and there didn't seem to be anything else in the rooms that they passed, though Nitroplus swore she could hear some monsters growling here and there...surely this place wasn't connected the recent wave of monster attacks right? Though she wished she were wrong, Nitroplus had a feeling she was 100% correct in her assumption.

As they turned the corner and went down yet another elevator, the group were deposited into another long white hallway, although along the walls were numerous posters of white heart with her face ripped out, defaced, or having a big red X slashed across them.

"What the hell is all this...?" Nitroplus said looking around

"I dunno, but screw whoever put this up!" Chuck hollered ripping a poster down "How dare whoever be here deface Lady Gray Heart's beautiful face!"

"Keep it down man, someone may hear you!" Oscar scolded

"Oh what are the chances of that happening? This place is deserted!"

As if on cue, a few doors opened up to release several robots. They were about the height of an average man, though where their left hand would be instead were drills and their right hand was more claw-like. At the revelation of the things were getting ready to try and kill them, everyone shot Chuck a dirty glare

"W-what's with those looks? How was I supposed to know that'd happen?"

No one bothered answering such an obvious question as the four got ready for a fight, Chuck and Oscar readying their lances, while Larry took out twin daggers, as for Nitroplus herself, she withdrew her katana and gun, ready for a fight.

"Raw Meat, be sure to stay back alright?" Nitroplus said keeping her eyes trained on the enemy

"Understood! Meat." With that the piece of floated off to safe distance

A few of the robots took the initiative, charging the group head on with those drills hand whirring madly as they did. One tried for a direct strike on Nitroplus, but she effortlessly deflected the whirring drill with her Katana before unloading a few bullets into the monster.

 _BANG BANG BANG_

The sound of gunfire echoed throughout the hall as the fight ensued, Larry and Chuck were holding off their enemies rather well, with Oscar doing his best to follow up on the opening Nitroplus had left on the enemy she'd attacked, driving his spear through the things head, He let out a chuckle before being tackled by one of them

"Gwaaah!" He hollered as he was knocked into a wall. The pain was terrible, but he shrugged it off and got back to his feet to keep on fighting

"Don't get cocky; these things are a lot tougher than they look!" Nitroplus called out as she slashed at another robot, severing its drill hand, the sparks of electricity causing it to stumble back some as she sprayed bullets into its head, as she did this one of the machines managed to grab her with its claw hand, holding her up high before getting ready to slam her down face first into the ground.

Thankfully for Nitroplus though, Larry had seen this about to happen and managed to disarm the robot so that Nitroplus landed (relatively) safely, the impact being a lot less painful than it could have been. She quickly got back to her feet, her right hand engulfed in flames before she shot at a group of enemies

"Take this, my Noblest Blade!" the flames shot from her hand like a flamethrower, incinerating the robots, to add insult to injury, she sent out two power waves of energy from her Katana dealing high damage to them and leaving them as a pile of scrap. Larry, Oscar, and Chuck all stared in amazement at the display.

"Let's move on." Nitroplus said silently as Raw Meat hovered back into the scene. The others nodded and continued behind her, still speechless from the display of power she'd showed off to them. It was quite for a bit before Chuck Larry spoke up again

"So...looks like whoever runs this place knows we're here."

"Yeah, I wonder who is in charge of all this, the more we go along the more of a bad feeling I get." Oscar said shuddering.

"Well, the four of us will be fine, I mean, we have Lady Nitroplus with us and you saw what she did to those robots right?" Chuck said "With power like that, we'll be fine!"

"Keep it down you three!" Nitroplus chastised "We need to stay on guard, there's no telling what else is waiting in store for us."

The men all agreed and kept quiet for the time being, the look on Nitroplus's face was one that made it clear that the time for goofing around and cracking random jokes were over. There was more walking before the group was hit with another elevator.

"Seriously another one, just how far down does this place go...?" Nitroplus muttered as everyone filed into it. Another silent ride down and they stepped out into yet _another_ hallway. Needless to say Nitroplus was not pleased with this, but at the very least there were a few more differences here, the rooms seemed to have a bit more of an office like feel, and Larry suggested that going through them may help give them some sort of idea of just what was going on here.

Wasting no time, everyone split up to look around; heading into different rooms to see what was in them. The one Nitroplus and Raw Meat went into was rather messy, with numerous plans and drawings strewn throughout. What caught her eye though was a drawing plastered to the wall that showed all the nations, Lowee,Leanbox,Lastation, and Planeptune all on fire and the words 'destroyed from the inside' written among them. That was something worth noting, whoever this person was, they had plans of some sort to take out the other four nations along with Steamport. Taking out her phone, Nitroplus began snapping pictures; it'd help out for when she needed to explain things to Gray Heart.

She searched around a bit more, but aside from that drawing there didn't seem to be anything else in this particular area, With that she retreated into the hall again, standing outside of the door and keeping an eye on things. Eventually, the other three party members returned from the other rooms and joined up with Nitroplus.

Nitroplus gave a cursory glance at her allies, their faces didn't particularly portray any hints of failure or success so she was stuck having to ask the question herself: "Find anything useful...?"

"Nothing on my end." Chuck said grimacing

"None here either, just a bunch of crappy game demos on some computers." Oscar muttered

"You were playing games!?" NItroplus said through gritted teeth

"W-well yeah, but only because I thought they would give some sort of clue, honest!"

"Well did they...?"

"Not really no..."

Nitroplus rolled her eyes and turned to Larry "What about you?"

"Actually..." Larry said with a smug grin "I did find something!"

"Well, what is it?" Nitroplus asked

"Uh right, it's a printed email, check out what it says."

 _Dear *******_

 _Hello my friend! I heard that you've run into a roadblock, the CPU Gray Heart lives still! Such a shame, you went through all that planning to have it blow up that way. Don't worry though; we've still got things covered here. Leanbox, Lowee, and Lastation won't know what hit them! We can worry about Planeptune last; Purple Heart is such a moronic CPU by the time the plan is in full swing it'll be far too late for her to do anything worthwhile. Still, are you sure about going with gorilla style attacks? I suppose that's as good a way as any to make ourselves known. We'll show these CPU what real game makers are like after we've usurped them. Good luck to you and things on your end._

 _Sincerely, ******_

"Usurping the goddesses...? Who are these morons?" Nitroplus muttered to herself, her thoughts were cut short, as they heard a rumbling beneath them.

"Oh great now what?!" Oscar yelled out as the rumbling intensified

His query was answered when a large robot, way bigger than the last several they'd torn through crashed through the floor and landed in front of them. Like the robots before it had a huge drill on its left arm, however its right arm was normal and held a blade within its grip. Nitroplus snarled at the revelation and quickly looked at her surroundings, that hole didn't make things easy...they needed to regroup and figure out a plan.

"Everyone, we need to fall back, to the elevator now!" Not bothering to complain, the others followed behind her as the robot began to follow, it was a bit faster than anticipated, but everyone had still been able to outrun it and file back in. The door closed as it began ascending towards the upper floor.

"How are we going to defeat that thing, it's way too big!" Oscar cried

Nitroplus scowled, "Calm down! I'll think of something for now we need to put as much space between it and us!"

However, just as soon as she finished saying that, everyone felt a large tug...and then another...and another before the next thing they knew all of them were flying as the Elevator rocketed off...somewhere. Raw Meat had managed to hang on to Nitroplus thankfully, so that she didn't have to be crushed, as soon as the sudden movement stopped and the door opened with a ding Raw Meat hovered out since she had the most sense about her after the sudden flight. Looking at what had occurred, the robot had wrenched the door open, grabbed the wire the elevator was on and tossed it all the way over the hole to the other side of the hall.

"Nitroplus, please pull yourself together! Meat!" the poor girl cried shaking her friend (or doing the best she could anyway) all the while the robot edged closer. Nitroplus groaned as she stepped out of the wreckage, the others slowly doing so as well.

"O-okay...that didn't go as planned...le-lets head for those stairs right now!" she said seeing them from the corner of her eyes

A bunch of pained groans responded to her as the group ran for the stairwell. Thankfully, the door was too small for the robot to go through...that didn't stop him from punching a hole through it though. Nitroplus again groaned, this was not going how she expected. The party continued to flee, until finally they were in an area similar to the entrance of the factory, it was big and spacious and while there were some large crates around, and it wouldn't impede them in any way thankfully.

"Alright everyone, we make a stand here!"

The three guards readied their weapons as the stomping and subsequent crashing of the robot through the wall occurred. Its drill did a little spin as it clutched its sword and focused on the group. The air was tense as both parties stared the other down.

"Let's go everyone!" Nitroplus called as she charged at the machine. She whipped out her gun firing off a few preliminary shots that while hitting the robot, didn't do too much damage. She dodged a swipe from its blade, Larry sliding behind the menace and slicing at its legs in an attempt to cripple it someone while Chuck and Oscar blocked the drill attack coming towards Nitroplus, though they were pushed back while doing so.

Not wanting to spend too much time on this thing, Nitroplus once more engulfed her hands in flames, repeating the same attack she did on the smaller robots, shooting it at the giant one and doing same slashes as before. The giant robot recoiled from the damage, but it wasn't enough to stop it from moving entirely, it turned its attention towards Nitroplus and swung its huge blade at her. Nitroplus barely dodged it, only to be knocked away when it lifted a foot and kicked her. She sailed through the air landing onto a bunch of crates, groaning at the pain that traveled throughout her body

"L-Lady Nitroplus!" Oscar yelled in horror "Men, show no quarter to this thing!"

His rallying heard, the three guards all rushed the robot from different directions, Oscar distracting the drill hand, while Chuck took the sword, this left the thing open for Larry to leap at the things chest and stab it in the chest with his daggers. Sure it didn't do too much damage, but it was enough to make it stumble back as some small crackles of electricity escaped its body. The fight raged on against the two parties as the guards continued holding the monster off.

Meanwhile, Nitroplus had finally finished reeling from the pain as she stood up. Alright, this thing had officially pissed her off! She knew exactly how to end this thing one and for all. Getting up, she rushed towards it as the others continued fighting, leaping off of Chuck's head (to which he yelled at her for that) before she brought out a chainsaw aiming for the robot's head.

"Behold the weapon that slashes away evil!" Nitroplus roared as she brought it down upon the robot's head slashing constantly at its face as it tried in vain to throw her off, but it proved ineffective as she continued slashing away at its cranium until the head was completely severed from the body, even though it was only a robot, it was still a rather grisly sight nonetheless and when things had calmed down, Nitroplus still had an angry look on her face, enough that the Oscar and the others didn't say anything after, a small ways off another elevator opened showing the way forward which made Nitroplus sigh.

"There better not be more crappy robots to fight after this." She murmured "Come on men, we're heading further in."

The three guards followed suit, a bit afraid to say anything to Nitroplus right now, once they got off the elevator, it lead to one singular room. There were no other doors or anything, just a straight shot to wherever this lead.

 _Thank the goddesses._ Was the thoughts that ran through Nitroplus's mind, as she and her allies neared the door, she silently told them to wait until she charged in first, they all nodded in agreement as Nitroplus promptly kicked the door in with such force that flew a few feet before she ran in with her sword and gun drawn. The room had a myriad amount of computer screens on it, all saying some incomprehensible nonsense or having some sort of program open. Sitting the chair looking at it all was a young man in a white.

"You there, put your hands up where I can see them!"

"Ah, I see the dogs of the goddess have come to capture me, it was only a matter of time before this happened I suppose." The young man muttered standing up with his hands raised "Very well, you've caught me, I won't run."

A bit surprised, Nitroplus went to restrain him. "Alright then, I want answers, who are you and what the hell is going on here?"

"Oh I'm just a humble game creator, trying to make his way in the world." He replied smiling

Nitroplus was more than annoyed at this and roughly cuffed him to get the point across. "I meant your name smartass." She grumbled

"The name's Jake Raimes a pleasure to meet you ."

"Don't screw around with me, what was with that letter about taking out the goddesses, what are you planning?!"

At the mention of the letter, the Jake's eyes twitched a bit, he probably wasn't expecting her to know about that bit, but he sighed.

"Me and some...associates, were planning to dethrone the goddesses. We're sick of them regulating what qualifies as a good game and what doesn't, we're sick them acting as if they're some higher being that knows every little thing, we want...no we _will_ dethrone them and then it'll be humans alone who decide who and what is good!

"Well aren't you self-righteous..." came Chuck's voice as the others filed into the room "Sounds to me, like you're just mad that Lady Gray Heart is amazing!"

"Predictable words from a dog." Jake replied with sarcasm "It matters not what you've done with me, the order has been passed to my allies and already they begin to make their moves! Lowee should be running into quite some trouble right now. He smirked, a smirk that showed just how cruel and twisted he truly was.

"What the...Lowee?!"

Not wasting any time Nitroplus whipped out her phone, surprisingly she had full bars even down here. She tapped out Gray Heart's number and surprisingly enough, it went through!

"Oh good, I got in touch in this stupid place." She hissed "Okay look, I found a very big lead on who was behind your attack, but that isn't important right now. Are the other goddesses there?"

"Yes they are but what's wrong-"

"Good." Nitroplus cut her off, "Listen tell them to get some of their guards and do some looking around their nations, according to some jackass I talked to here, there may be some attacks on the other nations and-"

Nitroplus was then cut off herself when the Oracle of Lowee came through yelling about how someone was attacking Lowee. Looks like Jake wasn't kidding around with what he said earlier

"Dammit...it's already starting." Nitroplus growled "Look, I'll bring you up to speed later once this has all settled Gray Heart, go help Lowee for now!"

"But what about you, are you okay?" Gray Heart asked

"I'm fine, just get moving; I've got everything on this end taken care of" She turned the phone off, turning back to her allies. "Alright guys, let's get this guy booked and ready for interrogation."

"Interrogation, surely you mean torture right?" Jake asked snidely

"If it comes to that but don't worry, even if we torture you, you have my word that you won't suffer any physical harm. Right Raw Meat?"

"Of course! Meat!"

At her words, Jake was left completely baffled...

 _END_

* * *

 **And so this chapter ends. I'll admit, I've never really written fight scenes before, but I _think_ I'm getting it down somewhat. Fights are a lot harder to write out than it is to see them visually. That being said, I hope you all enjoyed the chapter, leave comments, critics etc should you feel the need, I appreciate it.**

 **Fun Fact:The fun fact for this particular chapter is that I was tempted to have Nitroplus go it alone, but I felt it'd be fun to have her accompanied by a ragtag crew of oddball guards who probably won't appear again after this. I decided to give them purposely normal names, since I figured it'd juxtapose with their jobs rather well. Seriously, what would you say if a spy told you his name was 'Larry' of all things?**


	8. Chapter 8: Lowee in Flames

**Boy, this one is a bit late isn't it? Well, I'm sorry about that, but all this month I've been caught up in other things, but hey better late than never right? Well all I can say is sorry once more and that I hope you enjoy the new chapter. By the way, Nier Automata is a fun game with a beautiful soundtrack. Pick it up if you have the chance. With that said, let's move on.**

 **Chapter 8: Lowee in Flames**

* * *

"Get a move on you three!" White Heart yelled back at Gray Heart and the twin White Sisters. The four of them were speeding towards Lowee, normally the sisters and White Heart would just fast travel back to their home continent, but with them bringing Gray Heart along that option wasn't possible and so they were stuck going the long way. The night air wasn't helping as it was extremely cold and with Lowee being in the northernmost part of Gamindustri, things were only getting colder, which didn't go unnoticed by Nova or Gray Heart at all."

" _Man, it's freezing up here!"_ Nova spoke from within Gray Heart's head

"Please stop complaining, White Heart is already yelling at me enough and I don't need your whining on top of that."

" _Right, sorry."_

Nova really didn't enjoy the cold that much, or at least, he didn't enjoy the frigid temperatures that came from being thousands of feet above the ground while heading to what was basically this world's version of the North Pole. There was however one particular upside to this: Due to White Heart flying so fast she was ahead of the others, and this gave Nova ample view of her backside, he had to admit...that leotard complimented her rather well...he'd just make sure to keep this to himself though to avoid the wrath of both Gray Heart and White Heart.

"Cut that out Nova!" Gray Heart exclaimed

" _W-what are you talking about?"_ he stuttered trying to hide what he was doing

"Actually...I'm not sure, I just had a feeling I should say that."

That...was unsettling; she couldn't read his thoughts or know what he was doing at all times could she...? He'd have to worry about that later, for now, Lowee was the main focus.

The flying continued for at least another hour as the group came upon Lowee, while the nation would normally have a serene look to it thanks to all the snow, instead what the four were greeted with was smoke and flames. The cries of distressed Lowee residents could be heard as the four CPUs descended to the ground, a small monitor popping up in front of White Heart.

"Mina, what's your status?" She commanded

"There are monsters in the north, south, and eastern parts of Lowee. Lady C-sha has engaged the leader of this attack in the western area. I was heading out to aid her as well now that the Basilicom is secure."

"Right, I'll meet you there. As for you three, I want you to head to the North, East, and South and get things under control."

"Don't worry about us Sis; we'll handle this just fine!" Ram said flashing a smile

"We'll finish up quickly!" Rom said nodding

The two flew towards the south together...makes sense that they didn't split up, those two looked to be better as a pair rather than being apart from one another. White Heart sighed and flew off westward, leaving Gray Heart alone

"Looks like we're on our own Nova, let's go take care of the eastern area first."

" _Fine with me, just keep on your toes."_

With that, Gray Heart flew towards the eastern area of Lowee; it was indeed under attack by various monsters. Some eggplants flying on horses, others being dogoos or...was that a weird looking nerd guy? Whatever the case, they were attacking and the city guards were being overrun. Having the element of surprise, Gray Heart called on her greatsword dive bombing one of the beasts and impaling it with her sword.

"W-who are you?" One of the guards asked cautiously

"No time to talk, we're getting rid of these things!" She yelled black, blocking a swipe from one of the eggplant knight's attacks.

"R-right, men, we'll form a defensive line and drive these monsters back!"

The remaining guards rallied behind Gray Heart and their commanding officer and began to attack the monsters that had invading the city. Gray Heart leading the charge and she swung her blade in a wide arc bisecting two of the eggplant knights with ease, the guards followed up behind her, stabbing and slashing at others with their spears and swords , doing their best to push the enemy back. Several of the weird nerd looking monsters tried to rush at Gray Heart, but using her sword like a back, she effortlessly swatted them away, sending them flying out of Lowee until they were nothing but a small twinkle in the night sky.

The fight raged on as Gray Heart furiously swung her blade at all the incoming enemies, at one point a weird green pipe latched on top of her head, making her look like a fool, thankfully one of the Lowee guards managed to get it off of her.

"Okay now I'm pissed, you there, signal the other guards to get behind me!" Gray Heart yelled at one of the guards who promptly did as told, he frankly didn't want to be anywhere near a pissed off goddess especially after he'd seen and heard how White Heart could be when _she_ was pissed off about something. It took a few minutes, but soon enough the guards were all behind her as the monsters took this chance to rush forward.

"I'VE HAD IT WITH ALL OF YOU!" Gray Heart bellowed at the onslaught of enemies "GET READY TO DIE, EARTHQUAKE BETA!" With a mighty slam of her greatsword on the ground the entire earth shook, the incoming monsters stopping in their tracks at the sudden quake, Gray Heart slammed it again and again, each tremor causing the monsters to stumble around until with one final slam on the ground the monsters all impaled in sharp stalagmites, destroying them all.

Needless to say, that the guards were a bit more afraid of the Steamport CPU than they had been before. "All right...this place seems cleared out for now. We need to head to the Northern area of Lowee, that part is still under attack." Gray Heart commanded

"Er...y-yeah, you got it." The guard who was in charge replied "Men, we're heading to the Northern part of the city, stick close to the CPU and keep your eyes peeled for any danger!" The guards let out various grunts of approval and the group was off to the Northern part of Lowee...

At the southern part of Lowee, Rom and Ram were doing their best to defeat the horde of monsters that were within the area, well really, they just threw out the occasional ice spell to freeze them in their tracks, while the guards did all the work.

"U-uh Ram...shouldn't we be helping them more?" Rom asked

"Don't worry Rom, they've got it handled, see?"

The two peered down at the guards who were fighting with amazing ferocity "Protect the White Sisters! Protect as if them as if they were your own little sister!" One guard yelled

"LITTLE SISTER, LITTLE SISTER, LITTLE SISTER!" rung out in unison as the guards fought with even more fury, not wanting Rom or Ram to get hurt, the entire sight was pretty morbid all things considered, the monsters didn't even stand a chance against them. Ram lazily threw out another ice spell as Rom just watched in amazement as the guards fought on undeterred

"Wow...that's pretty cool." Rom muttered

"You heard that men?!" A guard said from behind her suddenly which made her jump in fright "Lady Rom thinks we're cool for defending her and Lady Ram. FIGHT HARDER MEN! PROTECT THEIR SMILES!" A loud 'Raaaah' came from the crowd of guards as they fought _even harder_ than they already had been. Truly it was a sight to behold, one that neither Rom nor Ram would forget for quite some time.

Meanwhile, White Heart had reached the Western part of Lowee; this area seemed to be cleaned out of monsters since she hadn't seen any so far, that was reassuring for her at least. The last thing she needed was to be bogged down by monsters getting in her way. It was a bit more flying before she finally caught sight of what she'd been looking for. There was her friend C-sha facing off against a fat man in a mech suit decked out with a blade in one hand and gun in the other.

"Come and repent!" he shouted before slashing at C-sha who elegantly dodged out the way

"Gotta say, you're a lot tougher than I expected old man, that or I'm getting rusty." C-sha replied before moving in to strike the machine. It actually slides back a bit before stopping and firing off a few rounds at C-sha. Seeing this, White Heart landed down next to her friend and deflected the blasts with ease.

"Took ya long enough Blanny, what were you doing?" C-sha asked grinning at her

"Sorry, I had to drag Gray Heart here, she's never been to Lowee before, so you know how that goes."

"Well that sucks..."

"So the false goddess finally arrives! I was wondering when you'd show up!" The man shouted bombastically "Come and face me so that you may face the power of one who is bathed in the light of truth!"

"Alright you asshat, who the hell are you?!"

"Me? I am Thaddeus ! But, please call me Reverend Badd, rolls off the tongue much easier, I am the leader of The Tree of Knowledge, a group who rebukes the false teachings of CPUs who so brazenly hate on games that don't meet their standards! "

Blanc couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at the guy, while C-sha gave her a confused look; the two were completely put off by that proclamation but that didn't matter right now, what did matter was beating this guy within an inch of his life as far as Blanc was concerned.

"Well, whatever, you mess with my nation and you've already signed your death warrant!"

The CPU flew towards Reverend Badd, the rage clear in her eyes, C-sha following behind her so that she could follow up on White Heart's attack if she saw the chance

"Now then, Tanzerin Trombe!"

The Cpu did a spinning attack with her axe into the mech, trying her hardest to hit it, while she got in a few blows, some of them were blocked, including the final overhead swing, however this left him open for C-sha to deliver a crushing blow to his exposed side, the machine crackles and shoots out some sparks before sliding back. Before Reverend Badd could make any sort of move though, ice spikes shot out towards him, striking his suits arms

"There you are Mina, what took you so long? White Heart asked

"Well I can't fly...that and all the destruction that's littered throughout the streets doesn't make things any easier." Mina replied matter-of-factly

"Right, well, let's ice this guy alright?" C-Sha said

"Did you just..." Mina muttered

"Oho, now three against one, that's not fair you know!" Reverend Badd called out to them "It seems I'll have to use my greatest weapon after all!"

What comes next is Reverend Badd dropping the normal sword he'd been using and replacing it with one that's blood red, an insidious aura coming from it as he brandishes it at the women facing him down.

"What _is_ that?" C-Sha asks looking at the other two "I don't think I've ever seen a sword like that before

"It can't be..." Mina mutters adjusting her glasses, "Lady Blanc that's-!"

"I know. Anti-sharicite, but how in the hell did he make it into a weapon?" White Heart muttered

There was no time to think on this though, as Reverend Badd flew forward, firing out some blasts from the gun in his one hand as he closed the distance between him and the heroes of Lowee, they dodged the shots easily, but he'd been aiming for White Heart specifically bringing the sword to hit slash her across the waist. White Heart met the attack blocking it with her axe, but the aura from the sword was causing her to become and so Badd was able to push her back causing her to crash into a nearby building.

"D-dammit!" she growled getting up and brushing some debris off of her.

"Hoho, this blade really does work, with this I can blot out the false truth of the goddesses of Lowee!" He laughed

"Oh screw off already, I've had it with you, you freaky priest!" She yelled "Zerstorung!"

"Hey, that's _reverend_!" Bad corrected as Blanc flew towards him, he blocked the attack, but even with the sword weakening White Heart's attacks it was still enough to send hem careening back out of the building Blanc had crashed through. He crashed against another building, preparing to get back into the fray before her heard some words from his right.

"Ice Coffin!" Mina yelled holding her staff out, causing a large shard of ice to sprout from the ground and strike him.

"How troublesome, it's quite unfair to attack me three on one you know!" Badd shouted moving away to a position that didn't leave him as open. His efforts were met with C-Sha blasting him with blaster that covered her entire forearm. How she got that on so quickly was anyone's guess.

"Ugh, such violent harlots, and to think you run an entire nation!" Badd yelled

"This is what you get when you try to raze my home!" White Heart yelled going in for another slash with her axe, unfortunately, it was bounced back, the anti-sharicite sword nullifying a significant amount of strength.

"Hah, you can't defeat me so long as I have this weapon!" Badd gloated "Do yourselves a favor and submit to my righteousness at once!"

"Man, does he _ever_ shut up?" C-Sha muttered

"Maybe once we beat him, we can sow his mouth shut." Mina said with a small giggle

Badd was about to act again, but he recoiled when he saw Gray Heart, Rom, Ram, and a contingent of Lowee guards coming up behind White Heart and the others ,causing him to snarl in anger

"I suppose that's enough for now, but know this White Heart, you _will_ suffer my wrath another day!" With that Reverend Badd took off to the sky.

"Shouldn't we go after him?" C-Sha asked looking at her friend

"No, for now we focus on getting Lowee cleaned up." White Heart muttered, returning to her human form, she faced the guards, coughing a bit to clear her voice "Alright, all of you, I want you all to make sure the civilians are safe. A report of any casualties, and an extent of all the damage done, makes sure all women and children are attended to first and foremost, understood?"

Waves of compliance were heard as the guards scrambled to start to work on their orders. Blanc let out a tired sigh; this was going to be a one hell of a sleepless night for her and she wasn't looking forward to it.

"Alright everyone, lets head back to the Basilicom, you all did well out there." She said, ushering the others along, the night went along without incident, and when morning came, Lowee at least looked marginally better than it had the night Gray Heart had arrived, the wrecked building s were already being repaired, there were no more fires, and what parts of the roads had been cracked were now fully cemented.

"Huh, the workers of Lowee sure work fast." Nova muttered as he stared out a window, he'd been following Mina as Blanc had called him, C-Sha, Rom, and Ram to her office so that they could plan their next move.

"Well, it's not so much that the workers are that skilled, but we here in Lowee employ magic in much of our daily lives, didn't you notice the lack of cars and such when you got here?"

"Huh...now that you mention it you're right." Nova said rubbing his chin "Why is that anyway?"

"Well, Lady Blanc wanted Lowee to have a feeling of the fantastic. Surely you agree that the nation gives off those fantasy vibes right?"

"Well considering that when I got here everything was on fire, I can't really be a good judge, I will say the snowfall does give the place an air of beauty though."

At this Mina giggled "Well, I'm glad you think so." The two of them continued to converse until they made it to Blanc's office, C-Sha and the twins already having been there, waiting on them, the atmosphere was a bit depressing, but that was to be expected.

"Well, we're all here Blanny, what's the plan?" C-Sha asked

"Huh...? Oh right, sorry I'm really tired right now." Blanc said with a yawn to emphasize her point

"I'll say, you look awful." Nova replied, which made Blanc scowl at him

"You know, that's never something a woman never wants to hear." Mina chided

"R-right, sorry about that Blanc, please continue with what you were saying."

"Right so, for now, I've gotten in contact with the other goddesses, they're increasing security around the borders so this 'Reverend Badd ' guy won't have anywhere to run if he tries fleeing the nation. Mina I want you to do a background check on this guy, see if you can find anything about him...he seemed kinda familiar."

"You saying you know that whack-job Blanny?"

"I...think so? I mean, something about his face seemed familiar at least, I can't quite pinpoint what it was exactly."

She let out a sigh, clearly whoever Badd was, it was clearly bothering Blanc to some degree, but that didn't matter right now and so she continued on.

"C-Sha, can you work with the guards, do some scouting to see if you find anything?"

"You got it; I'll let you know if I find anything."

"Good, as for you three..." she said turning to Rom, Ram, and Nova "Rom, Ram, I want you to take Nova around and check up on Lowee, make sure the people are okay."

"But we wanna help out too!" Rom exclaimed

"Yeah, why do we have take this bozo around with us?" Ram said scowling

"Bozo...?" Nova muttered

"Now Ram, that's not nice, besides, the citizens of Lowee love you two, seeing their favorite goddesses walking around and making sure things are okay would do them some good, wouldn't you agree?"

"I guess so..." Ram lamented "Fine, but this bozo better keep at least ten steps behind me and Rom at all times."

Nova just sighed, not bothering to try and fight his fate; he really didn't know what more to do in regards to Ram, maybe he just had to resign himself to the fact that the little girl would always dislike him for some reason or another. The group was disbanded, Blanc, deciding to try and at least get a nap of some sort, while Mina and C-Sha went about their respective tasks, while this left Rom and Ram together with Nova. Blanc made it clear to him (via death glare) that he was to make sure that no harm befell her sisters, and as such he was being treated as a glorified pack mule and bodyguard by the two...well Ram more than Rom.

"Let's go to the candy shop first!" Ram exclaimed dragging Nova along, Ram had decided to keep close to him, which unfortunately for Ram meant that he couldn't follow her 'ten step' rule. She stopped caring once he said he'd buy whatever he wanted for her, it was just his luck that he had gotten a lot of cash from defeating the monsters...he still didn't get how that worked, but he wasn't complaining. The three entered the candy store, it had somehow managed to survive the chaos and destruction and so the old woman who ran the place greeted to the candidates with a smile.

"Ah, Rom and Ram, hello my little ladies, how can I help you?" she asked

"We want all of the special snacks you have!" Ram declared

"Of course girls, I'll even give you a little something extra for helping keep Lowee safe."

The two small CPU candidates let out cheers as they were each given a rather big sack of candy, while they happily began munching away, Nova had to fork over the cash...and it wasn't a paltry sum either. At least a good chunk of his money was already gone now thanks to the girls and their love of candy. With that done, they exited the candy store and proceeded to walk all over Lowee, surveying the damage firsthand while Rom and Ram made sure the citizens were okay, as Blanc noted, the townsfolk were delighted to see them out and about tending to them after such an attack on their homes.

Nova didn't really say much, instead taking in the sights of the cold nation. Despite how wrecked a lot of places were, it didn't change the fact that Lowee was a beautiful nation. The snow covered buildings had a certain allure to them and things were really quiet wherever he and the twins went, but then that most likely had to do with all the snow. The only thing really muddling this experience was that Rom and Ram had decided to make Nova carry most of anything they bought (Well Nova really bought it but you know...) and at least Rom would apologize for it.

Eventually, the twins decided to head back to the Basilicom, their check-up of the nation having concluded while Nova was busy carrying whatever gifts they'd managed to snatch up on the way. Being directed to their room Nova set their bag of goods down before taking a good look at the room. It was pretty much what he'd expect for kids their age. It had a bunch of stuffed animals, a single bed that the two most likely shared, and the entire room was a mix of pink and blue, right down to the curtains.

"Heh, this kind of reminds me of my little sister's room." Nova muttered

 _You have a sister?_ Gray Heart asked

"Well two actually, they're great...well one of them loves reading people's minds."

 _She can read minds?!_

"Among other things, maybe you'll get to meet them one day."

He exited the room, deciding to report to Blanc, the twins had most likely gone off to play or something to that effect, since Nova didn't see them anywhere. Which was mostly good, Ram was a slave driver and all around a bit mean to him, so he didn't want to be subject to her wrath. As he walked down the halls more, he just barely dodged a book that was flying at him from seemingly out of nowhere.

"Darn it!" he heard Ram yell before she scampered off

"Man, she sure is a handful..." Nova murmured picking the book up and continuing down to Blanc's office, maybe she could give him some idea on how to get Ram to stop with the insults and now physical harm she was attempting to throw at him. Opening the door to Blanc's office, he called out to her.

"Hey Blanc, I'm back and I wanted to talk to you about-"

He stopped mid-sentence as he saw Blanc slumped over her desk sleeping soundly. It was clear she was quite tired, even snoring lightly as her body heaved up and down.

"Poor thing" Nova muttered "She must have worn herself out working all through the night."

He decided that he couldn't just leave her here and so he quietly moved towards her and picked her up in his arms, she was pretty light, but then again, Blanc was probably the shortest of all the goddesses, even shorter than Neptune so he shouldn't be surprised. Leaving her office, he quickly found one of the maids that worked in the Basilicom and had her point out to him where Blanc's room was. Thankfully, it wasn't too far away and even better is that Ram didn't try throwing any more books at him or anything like that, so this made getting to Blanc's room simple.

With the door opened to hear room (which was filled with books, there had to be at least several shelves of them). He set her down in her bed, removing her shoes and then properly tucking her in.

"Heh, she's got a pretty cute sleeping face." Nova said looking at Blanc as she continued snoring away

 _Isn't that just a tad bit creepy?_ Gray Heart sighed from within Nova's mind

"What? It's not like I'm trying to assault her or anything like that."

 _Well no, but it's a bit weird for a guy to stare at a girl while she's sleeping wouldn't you agree?_

"I-I wasn't staring! Oh forget it; let's get out of here before she wakes up." With that Nova left her room, making sure to close the door lightly so that no sudden noises would wake the CPU, he didn't want to imagine what she'd be like if she were cranky, if it was anything like how she keep yelling at Gray Heart on the trip over here then that was a part of Blanc he definitely did _not_ want to suffer through.

Still, he couldn't help but let out a sigh, things were a lot more hectic than he had anticipated, especially with this Reverend Badd person...seriously, would anyone be surprised he was evil with the word 'Badd' in his name? Regardless, Nova had to steel his resolve, as he was sure this whole situation would be quite trying until it was resolved, especially what with those goddess killing weapons Badd supposedly had, those things put the goddesses at quite the risk and he couldn't even begin to imagine how things would go with those things being around. Still, he had Blanc and her allies on his side, so things would surely turn out well enough hopefully.

 **END**

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 **Fun Fact:I actually had fun thinking up Reverend Badd for this particular story. I mean, the game themselves pretty much confirm that Hyperdimension by all accounts _should_ have their own versions of the seven sages somewhere in their dimension right? Also, bonus points if you can figure out who Reverend Badd's whole group is meant to represent/be a parody of. I doubt anyone will be able to guess (That or they won't care).**


	9. Chapter 9: The Aftermath in Lowee

**So hey, I'm back! Pay no attention to that disappearance for a few months. I've been here the entiiiiiire time. Yep. Right here. Nowhere else. Okay? Okay. I totally wasn't distracted by video games and other writing projects. Nope, not at all. If anyone says otherwise they're lying. Totally lying. Not telling the truth. Now let's get on with the current chapter.**

* * *

It'd been two weeks since the attack on Lowee, Nova had been staying there with her and helping with repairs to the nation. While he wanted to return to Steamport to get some information out of the man that Nitroplus had captured, according to her, he was putting up quite the resistance to Raw Meat's special interrogation methods and as such things were at a standstill for now, however the man named Jake Raimes was being held in top level security until Nitroplus could get something out of him. With that being the case, Nova was left to his own devices, Blanc being thankful for the help in getting things back up to speed.

Staying in Lowee was surprisingly nice for the most part. Sure it was cold all the time, but it had a nice quiet and relaxing feeling...and that was something the young swordsman could get behind. There was just one thing that was making his stay at Lowee less than enjoyable...or rather one _person_.

"Gotcha!" Ram exclaimed hurling a book at Nova's face, which he deftly dodged

"Grrrr, no fair, you're not supposed to dodge my attacks!"

"You aren't supposed to attack me at all." Nova said with a sigh

Ignoring his words Ram ran off, probably to set up some other prank for him. For the past two weeks, the little goddess had gone out of her way to try and prank Nova. She'd actually been successful a few times, nailing him in the face with a book on several occasions and drenching him in water before. At first he thought it wouldn't be any worse than this...but then she tried freezing him solid once, which Rom had thankfully stopped her from doing, telling her that it was going too far and that Blanc would be furious. Thankfully, that was enough to deter her and since then she wasn't trying to freeze him solid anymore. Lost on how to handle Rom, the best he could do was simply dodge her, which got easier as the days went on. Even Mina voiced her surprise when Nova had managed to dodge one of her surprise book attacks.

Still, the constant attacks were sort of killing his mood, so Nova figured that going to Blanc would be a wise idea. After all, she was Ram's sister, so maybe she'd be able to help in getting her to lay off for a while.

"Sorry, I can't help." Blanc said bluntly from behind her desk

"You can't be serious; Ram has been on my case ever since I've been here!" Nova exclaimed in disbelief

"It's not so bad once you get used it, she'll probably get bored eventually and just leave you alone."

"Blanc, she's been at it for two weeks now, I don't think she's going to get bored."

"Well, you better keep your guard up then. Now get lost, I've got tons of work to do."

"But...!"

Blanc materialized her hammer in one hand as she looked at Nova threateningly

"Get. Lost."

Not needing to be told twice, Nova left her office, sighing as he did so. He really was on his own with Ram now and at the moment he was not in the mood to deal with more pranks from her, so since it was nearly noon already, he decided to sneak out and go grab some lunch. He still had a mountain of credits left from the monster attacks and since he'd gone out and done some quests during his stay, so he wasn't hurting for money at all. Lowee had quite a few interesting food shops, despite the whimsical nature of the nation, there were quite a lot of Japanese styled eateries around from sushi to ramen to beef skewers, Lowee had it all and more.

"Heeeeeeeey Nova~!" came a familiar voice

"Oh hey, Neptune!" Nova said with a wave as the lilac haired goddess strode over to him, Neptune had been coming by frequently as well since the attack on Lowee and according to her, it was because she brow-beat the author into including her since her name was in the title and as such, she was here...along with dodging work at her own Basilicom. When she told Nova this, he was just left dumbfounded at her words, not knowing how to respond to that at all. Whatever the case, Neptune had been fun to hang around for the most part, making the stay at Lowee much more bearable what with Ram trying to kill him.

"Yo yo, I'm here, what are you up to my faithful ally?" Neptune asked cheerfully

"I'm just going to grab some lunch, what about you?" He replied "Did you skip out on work again?"

"Ouch...it's not skipping out! I'm letting handle it!"

"That sounds a lot like you're skipping out on work..." Nova muttered

"Whatever, come on, let's go get some food, I'm starved!"

"If that's the case then why did you come all the way here to Lowee...?"

"Because this is where the story is focused on for the time being!"

Again, Nova didn't know how to respond to Neptune's fourth wall breaking words and so he just decided to go along with her. Besides, it never hurt to have a friend to eat with, his thoughts went back to his own world where he'd routinely eat lunch with his best friend Issen, and for a split moment he felt a sharp pain in his heart for doing so. He mentally shook it off and stayed close with Neptune as they decided to hit up the beef skewer restaurant. The two were quickly seated and began enjoying their food after they had allowed it to cook properly on the stove that sat in-between the two of them.

"So Nova, You find anything about that Reverend Badd guy?"

"Nope, he's been silent the entire time; I guess he wasn't expecting to lose the battle, so he's in hiding right now, can't say I blame him though."

"It's strange, if he's anything like the I knew, he'd have some scheme up his sleeve that'd put us on the ropes and then come out and taunt us about it."

Neptune had made mention of another dimension she'd visited some years ago. According to her, she and her sister Nepgear had been stuck there for about 15 years or so and while they were there they had to go up against the Seven Sages, of which was one of them, the story was quite harrowing (at least it was with how Neptune talked about it) and it ultimately ended with her and her friends having to fight off and insane older goddess.

"Don't jinx it Neptune." Nova let out with a sigh "The last thing we need is for that psycho to actually gain the advantage over us."

"Don't worry, who would actually listen to some weirdo priest guy anyway?" Neptune replied while swallowing her food effortlessly.

"I dunno, maybe he's got other tricks we don't know about it, and don't forget about that anti-sharicite blade he has too."

Neptune shivered at the mention of that sword, Blanc had gone into detail on how it had been making her progressively weaker throughout the battle and if he hadn't retreated, she was sure she'd have eventually been defeated, probably worse if Nova and the others hadn't been around.

"Man don't talk about that thing, it gives me the creeps." Neptune groaned "Let's just eat and forget about it for now."

Nova agreed with Neptune, talking about the battle wasn't a good conversation when out eating, and so he and the friendly goddess happily ate away at their food...well Nova stopped at his fifth helping, but Neptune just kept going...and going...and going...! She was going to use up all his money at this rate!

"Neptune, that's enough!" He exclaimed when she'd finished what had to have been her twenty-third helping of food.

"H-hey come on, I'm not done yet!" She whined

"You are when I'm the one paying for it." Nova replied through gritted teeth, ever since they'd been hanging out together, Neptune never once paid for a meal; odds are with how much of a slacker she was, Neptune had no money to her name, so he was forced to treat her to a meal...maybe _that's_ why she was always coming to Lowee, a constant stream of free meals is something no one could turn down.

"So hey, did ya find out anything from the whacko that Nitroplus caught?"

"Nothing yet unfortunately." Nova said with a loud sigh "He's not talking and he's seemingly quite resistant whatever Raw Meat's interrogation method is. However, we've got him locked up tight, so it's not a total loss. He'll talk soon enough."

Paying for the food, Nova and Neptune left the establishment, while Nova inwardly sighed as his funds had taken a bigger hit than he anticipated. Did all the goddesses of this world have the same eating habits as Neptune? If that were the case, he couldn't imagine what Blanc or the others would be like...and he prayed that his wallet never found out. Since he was spending time with Neptune, Nova knew that this meant that a majority of his day would be goofing off with her and doing whatever she wanted, it was weird, but Neptune just had that effect on people, despite the clearly trying times they were in Neptune still found time for fun and just being a goofball in general, it was no wonder that according to Blanc, she was in a constant state of being heckled by her nation's oracle, some little fairy named Histoire. He wondered if he'd ever get to meet her, she seemed pretty interesting if she could manage to get Neptune to actually work every once in a while. The day came to an end with Neptune having dragged Nova out to the arcade for more fun. The games were good, but nowhere near as great as the arcade back in Leanbox. Eventually, night fell and Neptune decided that she'd sleep over at Blanc's Basilicom.

"Are you really sure you should just be deciding that on your own?" Nova asked as the two of them walked back to the Basilicom

"It'll be fine, Blanc won't mind if I hang out! Besides, I've haven't hung out with her in a long time!"

"It sounds more like you just wanted to avoid getting yelled at once you got home."

"Urk...that's not true, I'm not running away from punishment!" Neptune replied lamely

"Sure, whatever you say Neptune." Nova replied, clearly not believing a word she said

"It's true, I'm serious!"

"Of course you are."

The two continued on like this until they got into the Basilicom proper, with Neptune wanting to stop by and speak to Blanc. Not seeing the problem with that Nova complied, until he stopped for a moment.

"What's wrong Nova, why the sudden serious face? You look like you just walked into an action scene from a movie."

"We're walking down the hall...no we got inside the Basilicom and we didn't get attacked."

"Attacked by what? Blanc wouldn't try to hurt us." Neptune said with a confused look on her face still

"Of course Blanc wouldn't...maybe...if she were angry enough she'd kill us, but Rom and Ram are a different story...especially Ram." He muttered

As if on cue, a cart started barreling down the hallway at an insane speed, it was coming way too fast for either Neptune or Nova to dodge out of the way and so Nova did the one thing he could think of: He got in front, preparing to take the thing head on.

"No-Nova watch out!" Neptune shouted

He ignored her, taking the full brunt of the thing, which he managed to stop successfully, he'd even managed to keep it level so it didn't tip over or anything like that, to which Neptune was quite surprised

"Wow, not bad Nova, I was expecting you to get run over or something like that."

He chuckled at her words "No worries, I've dealt with things way tougher than that."

"Oh yeah, well take this!" came a familiar voice, turning his head to the right, his face was met with a thick book hitting him square in the face. Nova let out a loud grunt as he took the full force of the tome head on

"Hah, I got you!" Ram cackled

Neptune just stared at the entire situation impressed, "Did you really plan that all out Ram...?"

"Of course I did, there's no way this dummy can outsmart me."

"U-um...are you okay?" Came Rom's voice who had been hiding around the corner, it was clear she'd been roped into this whole thing by Ram.

"I'm fine Rom." Nova said offering the soft-spoken girl a pat on the head

"Well now that you've finally 'got' me can we please stop with the pranks for now?" Nova moaned "We were just about to go see Blanc before all this."

"Big sister is sleeping..." Rom muttered "So it's best not to disturb her."

"Oh nonsense, Blanc won't mind waking up for lil' ol me, now let's go!" Neptune exclaimed ushering the twins and Nova along. The group made their way to Blanc's office where upon opening the door they saw the petite goddess snoozing on her desk.

" _She must really work herself to the bone looking after Lowee"_ Gray Heart echoed from within Nova's head

"You've been quiet today Gray Heart..."

" _What can I say? I was sleeping. That hit from Ram was enough to wake me though."_

The fact that Ram's throwing arm was enough to wake a slumbering goddess gave Nova a small tint of worry, but even so that wasn't anything compared to the sudden yelling he'd heard from Blanc

"NEPTUNE, WOULD YOU PLEASE GO AWAY!" She hollered angrily, a shadow casting over her face as one of her eyes had a dangerous red glow to it

"Jeez, what's the problem? I just wanted to play some games with you, come on stop sitting at that musty old computer and play a few rounds with me and Nova!"

"I'm tired." Blanc growled

"And a quick game will perk ya right up!"

Nova could see the vein building on Blanc's forehead and so he decided that it'd be best to intervene before things got out of hand and Blanc started attacking everyone in the room.

"Look, come on Neptune, let's leave Blanc alone to get some rest, I'm sure Rom and Ram could join us for some games instead?"

"Oh oh, I'm always up for some games, I Rom and I could totally school the two of you in Blatoon!" Ram snickered

"Oh yeah? Well you're on, come on Nova!"

The three girls ran out of the room, leaving Nova alone with Blanc for the moment

"Thanks for that..." Blanc said with yawn "Now I can get back to sleep."

With that, Blanc quickly fell back asleep, a light snoring. Feeling a twinge of curiosity well up within him, Nova couldn't help but walk over to Blanc's desk. Peering over her shoulder he expected to see some sort of important email or something about the welfare of Lowee, what he instead saw...surprised him. It wasn't about the welfare of Lowee at all; it instead was a...story? A fanfiction or something of the sort by the looks of it, Nova began reading it and as he scrolled down, he started noticing some...similarities to himself within the story.

It included a young man being spirited away to another world by a 'evil' god and how shortly after he allowed a beautiful goddess to inhabit his body so that they could defeat the evil god who had been causing trouble in her world as well. It wasn't a one to one telling of his story, but the more he read, the more it became pretty clear. No wonder she had asked so many questions about his world and that she went and wrote them down.

Nova couldn't help but chuckle at it all, it was a surprisingly interesting story for the most part, she'd even wrote in expies of herself and the other goddesses as well as the other candidates. Heck she even went far enough to write an encounter that was basically her experience with Reverend Badd, but instead he was named Pastor Mean.

Well, that wasn't a particularly creative name, but it was the thought that count...probably.

" _Come on now, you shouldn't keep Neptune and the others waiting."_ Gray Heart chided

"Yeah, yeah I know." Nova replied heading out of the office, he'd have to remember to talk to Blanc about that story of hers; it was pretty interesting all things considered.

The next few hours consisted of Nova, Neptune, Rom, and Ram all playing Blatoon together with Nova only winning a handful of matches. Neptune and Rom however were masters of the game with the two of them usually ending up as the last two combatants alive on their respective teams with both of them giving each other a rough time. Unfortunately for Neptune though, Rom was the one who would normally end up on top from these confrontations, she really was a beast at video games despite her soft demeanor.

"No fair!" Neptune cried after being killed for the fifth time straight

"Rom really is way too good." Nova sighed

"Rom, how did you get so good at this game...?" Ram asked in disbelief

"I...practice in the online lobby a lot. It's a lot of fun; I even reached S++ rank!"

"S++?! But that's _impossible_ ; no one can get to that rank!" Neptune exclaimed

"Yeah, I heard there was only one person in all of Gamindustri who ever made it that far..." Ram muttered

At those words, Rom sheepishly raised her hand with a small blush on her face, looks like she was that singular person who had broken the S++ rank.

"You're a real terror, ya know that kid?" Neptune deadpanned

"S-sorry..." Rom muttered

"Don't worry about it, you should be happy, not many people can do something like that, so wear it as a badge of honor!"

This made Rom's face brighten up a bit as she offered Neptune a soft smile in return

" _That smile is dangerous...I get the feeling it could tear apart an entire civilization..."_ Gray Heart muttered

" _What the hell are you talking about...?"_ Nova thought back at her

" _Nothing, just making an observation..."_

The group continued playing into the night, Blanc eventually joining them as well after she'd finally woken up from exhaustion induced sleep.

 _ **Meanwhile at an undisclosed location...**_

Reverend Badd angrily sat in the private bunker he'd had made, it'd been a couple weeks since the failed siege of Lowee. He wasn't sure what he could do right now, he had some allies within the nation, but not enough to help mount another attack like he'd done before. There weren't a ton of monsters to call on either as that infernal Gray Heart along with the army of Lowee had killed them all, and to top things off, he'd been trying to get in contact with Jake back at his hideout in Steamport, but unfortunately for him, the idiot had gone and gotten himself captured!

"This is so irritating! All of it!" he growled "How can I spread my holy gospel if things keep going like this?!"

"Really now Reverend, you ought to calm down, a man your age shouldn't get their blood pressure up after all." The voice in question was that of a womanly sounding person wearing a beautiful red and dress with small orange accents along the bottom, she was quite mature sounding with long blonde hair, yet at the same time her voice gave off hint slyness as well, making her somewhat unsettling. "So we suffered a small setback, there's no problem at all that we can't come back from."

"Indeed!" said another person whose voice was quite calm despite Badd's outburst. He was dressed as what could only be seen as a doctor, yet the glasses he had on obscured his eyes and made him slightly unnerving "All we need to do is just adjust things a little isn't that right sir?"

"Quite so." Said one more man, a bit more younger sounding than the last , with his body being obscured in shadow "Tell me doctor, did you finish that little project I asked you about?"

"Of course I did, you're quite lucky I'm good at software. All we have to do is get these distributed and anyone who uses them should be under your control."

"Good to hear, this will do perfectly."

"What is he on about?" Reverend Badd asked with a raised eyebrow

"You see Reverend..." the young man said "If we cannot assault the enemy with an army of monsters...we'll simply attack them with an army of people."

"But...where in Gameindustri are we even going to find enough people willing to stand up to the goddesses?"

"Well...to that end, we'll just have to find some... _local_ talent."

 _ **The next morning...**_

Another typical day in the Lowee Basilicom had Nova waking up and after getting his wits about himself, checking in with Nitroplus. According to her, that Jake guy still wasn't talking at all and like before she'd notify him if anything else happened. Having gotten that out of the way, he took a quick shower before getting dressed and deciding what more to do with his day, there was still no word on Reverend Badd either, so for the time being there wasn't much to do.

"Maybe I should go do some more quests?" Nova muttered to himself

" _How about we warp back to Steamport for a bit, Lowee is nice, but I'd like to be somewhere that's not as cold."_ Gray Heart said with a yawn

"Huh, I'm surprised to see you up so early."

" _I got enough sleep last night, so I should be ready for the day."_

"It's not like you really do all that much anyway whenever we go out, I'm strong enough to take out whatever monsters are roaming around on my own."

" _Oh be quiet, remember our enemies are still out there."_

"Well, no denying that, if we're gonna go back to Steamport for a while, we should probably let Blanc know."  
Gray Heart agreed, with Nova heading over to Blanc's office, since she was no doubt in there right now...probably working on that novel of hers or something like that. Coming across a maid along the way, he asked if Blanc was in her office, and after receiving confirmation that she was there he quietly stepped inside, seeing Blanc furiously typing away at her keyboard.

"Hey Blanc, you got a minute?" Nova called out to her

"What is it, I'm busy." She replied without looking up at him

"Just wanted to let you know that Gray Heart and I are stopping by Steamport for a bit, let us know if you need any help or anything."

"Really? That's too bad; I had something I needed you for actually."

"And what would that be?"

At this Blanc suddenly tensed up, a small blush creeping up on her face "I...wanted you to take a look at something for me, if you wouldn't mind?"

Nova raised an eyebrow, Blanc was suddenly quite nervous now and it without a doubt had to be because of that story he'd snuck a look at earlier, maybe she wanted some critiquing? It wasn't his forte, but he could help out with it probably.

"Sure, I'd be glad to help you out Blanc." Nova said with a smile "Lead the way

" _You're totally doing this only because you think she's cute..."_ Gray Heart mumbled

" _That's not true, I wanna help her out! I mean yeah Blanc is pretty cute, but that has nothing to do with this at all!"_ Nova thought back as he began following Blanc, doing his best to keep a straight face while following her.

The mental argument continued until Blanc had lead them out into a small patio, a maid waiting for the two of them , standing next to a small table for two. Blanc sat down opposite from Nova, the maid setting down to warm cups of tea. While he wasn't a big fan of tea, it was a big commodity in Lowee, which made sense considering how cold it was.

"I will be back with your food shortly." The maid said with a small bow before leaving

"So um...this is what I want you to look at." Blanc said pulling out a small folder "T-tell me your honest thoughts alright?"

Nova nodded and opened the folder and sure enough as he expected this was the story he'd seen her working on the previous day...though there was a lot more to it than before. She must have added some in at some point. As Nova read through it (taking small bites of his food and sips of his tea) he noticed some...strange parts of the story. Now, instead of fighting Reverend Badd in Lowee, they were fighting him in space, Gray Heart (or rather the expy of her and by extension Nova) had a random break down out of nowhere and were rendered useless both in and out of battle, the expy of C-sha (Now named Teesha)was now an angst ridden mess and while she could still fight, she was nothing like the upbeat woman Nova had come to know. This left the expy of Blanc as the sole hero to keep things together from the looks of it.

"So what do you think?" Blanc asked looking at him with anticipation on her face

"It's...definitely something that much is for sure." Nova said with a sigh

"What's with that reaction?" Blanc growled, the sudden mood shift causing Nova to shrink back a bit.

"Well...how can I put this nicely...?" He murmured

" _It's a load of crap."_ Gray Heart said bluntly

"It's a load of crap." Nova repeated without thinking

"WHAT?!" Blanc hollered, her temper clearly rising

"I mean...look, what was the point of making things so...weird? Things were pretty cool until we were suddenly in space and then all that pointless angst and drama happened." He said trying his best to get the reasons out before he ended up dead.

"It was a twist, it'd take the story in a new direction that no one would see coming!"

"And it's completely unneeded, things were pretty much okay already before that."

"Oh what would you know anyway, since when were you an expert on the literary arts?"

"Okay, fair enough, you're right Blanc, I'm not the least bit of a writer, but shouldn't the fact that I was able to point this out tip you off to how bad this is?"

Blanc opened and closed her mouth several times before realizing that yes, he was in fact right about this and so she sat back, angrily taking a bite out of her food before deciding to speak up again.

"So...?" She growled

"So...what?" he replied

"What do I do to make my story better?!"

Uh...I dunno; just take out that the space part and all the angst? Try focusing on having the story make sense instead of just making a weird twist that has no lead up or any foreshadowing or anything, I mean, I can't really think of much else other than that."

"Fine...I guess I can do that...but you're helping me!"

"What, why, I'm not a writer remember?"

"So what, better to have someone rather than no one and you can catch any mistakes I make as well, from now own, you're my official ghost writer."

"I don't get a choice in this at all do I?"

"Depends, do you enjoy not having your face caved in?"

"Yes...?"

"Then you have no choice!"

What followed for the next several hours was Nova pulling up a chair to help Blanc out while she sat at her desk typing away. The monotony of her clacking away at her keyboard made him sigh inwardly countless times and he couldn't exactly leave, as any time he asked for a break, Blanc would shoot him a glare that pretty much told him that if he moved or tried to leave, he was a dead man. It took him until the middle of the afternoon to convince her to take a break for some lunch, and though Blanc at first didn't want to move and just continue her work, her grumbling stomach made it clear that it required food or she wasn't getting anymore work done for the day.

This led to them heading out to Lowee so that they could grab a bite, this time just opting for some ramen since it'd be a quick meal...or it would have been at least if not for one small problem.

"So Neptune...what are you doing in Lowee again?"

"Well I wanted to come hang out! Besides, it was getting to be lunch time and I figured that I-

"She came here because she knew I'd pay for her food..." Nova said with a groan

"That is totally not true! I just so happen to value our friendship Nova, and so I have come by to spend time with you!"

"More like you value my wallet..." he sighed

"Just forget it and eat, you're treating both of us today." Blanc said calmly

"W-what, since when was that decided?!"

"Right now." Blanc smirked as she ordered her own bowl of food

"Huh...but...m-my money..." Nova whimpered

" _Just forget it; you can't win against the both of them."_ Gray Heart said with a laugh

Sighing, Nova resigned himself (and his wallet) to the fate of two hungry goddesses. The only good thing was that Blanc was far more reserved in her food intake. She only had a three bowls of ramen and at that they were the cheapest ones on the menu, but unfortunately, Neptune was not as forgiving and continued to eat more than her fair share of Ramen, stopping at about fifteen bowls, before she figured enough was enough (mostly so she could save room for pudding).

"Now that was a good meal!" Neptune stated as she, Nova, and Blanc were walking down the streets of Lowee "Now how about we head back to the Basilicom and play some games!"

"Not today Neptune, Nova and I have a lot of work to do today." Blanc replied

"Yuck, why bore yourself with that when we could play more Blatoon, I'm sure if we work together, we could beat Rom this time!"

"I'd love to Neptune, but I did promise Blanc I'd be her helper for the day, I can't just blow her off." The boy said with a shrug

"Oh you two are no fun! No fun at all!" Neptune whined

As the trio walked towards the Basilicom, what they saw made them all stop. There in front of the Basilicom were a crowd of people, trying their hardest to break down the front doors of the Basilicom, bashing and banging away with whatever items they had in their hands. Rolling pins, baseball bats, sledgehammer, you name it, and someone in the crowd most likely had it.

"What the hell is this...?" Nova said shocked at what he was seeing

"I don't know...but I'm not going to put up with this crap." Blanc said her temper increasing with each word, though she didn't like raising her voice to the populace of Lowee (it's bad for reputations after all) in this case Blanc saw little choice.

"HEY YOU ASSHOLES, WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING TRYING TO BUST UP MY BASILICOM?! She roared, enough to drown out the noise of the crowd, they all turned towards her slowly, their eyes glassy and devoid of life.

"Holy smokes, they're zombies!" Neptune cried panicking "They're gonna eat our brains!"

"Neptune, don't be ridiculous, there's no way-"

"The goddess of Lowee..." one of them droned

"Kill her..." muttered another

"Eat her brains..." one spoke

"Make her a warm cup of strawberry flavored tea and offer to pat her head..."

That last guy was tossed out of the crowd as the crowd began to slowly advance towards Blanc and the others, a murderous intent coming off of the lot of them.

"Girls...I think we should run." Nova said backing up

"I can't, not without Rom and Ram!" Blanc growled, she took out her hammer, preparing to beat the entire mob down, until it was Neptune that stopped her

"Blanc wait, you can't hurt them! I mean...they're citizens of your nation right? You can't hurt them, especially since a lot of them look like rowdy teenagers..." Neptune said, placing a hand on her shoulder "Come on, let's regroup for now, we'll save your sisters!"

As much as it pained Blanc to admit it, Neptune was right; she couldn't go around just beating on the people of Lowee...even if they were mindless zombies right now. With that being the case, she withdrew her weapon, she and her friends fleeing as the crowd began to give chase. Her thoughts were only on Rom, Ram, and Mina as she could only hope that they managed to get out of the Basilicom okay.

 **END**

* * *

 **So yep, this chapter is done! I suppose the fun fact for this chapter can be that I mostly had it done, but I got really distracted by a few things. (Namely Final Fantasy XIV if anyone reading here plays it. Aside from that, I suppose I'll just leave you all with the usual message of hoping you enjoyed the chapter and leave any reviews or whatever else with your opinions and I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to read the story.**


	10. Chapter 10:The Actual Title is Too Long

**Man it has been some time hasn't it? I'm sorry for the delay on this particular chapter, this was meant to be up in October, but real life decided to kick my ass in several ways, from familial obligations to goddamn jury duty. That's why this particular part is being put up when it is. Anyway, Enough Rambling out of me and enjoy the chapter.**

 **Chapter 10: MegaTagmension Blanc and Neptu-wait, this isn't that game...**

* * *

Nova, Neptune, and Blanc had been running throughout the streets of Lowee, the 'zombie' infestation was far more terrible than they thought, as no matter how far away they got, there would always seem to be a crowd heading for them. All of them letting out droning chants of the terrible things they'd do to Blanc. After finally getting away from them, the three ducked down into an alleyway for a quick reprieve, panting and heaving at the unexpected workout they'd gotten.

"Man, I never thought we'd lose them..." Nova said looking out of the alleyway for a second

"We should have, we've been running for four months! Seriously, what's the deal with that?! The author should be ashamed!" Neptune exclaimed angrily

"It's only been maybe...twenty minutes?" Nova replied with a raised eyebrow

"Forget her, we need to think of a plan." Blanc stated with irritation "Rom and Ram could be in trouble or hurt!"

"Let's calm down a second, we don't know that, It didn't look like the crowd got into the basilicom...but then what the hell set them all off anyway?"

"Maybe they got mad because of Blanc's temper? I mean, I don't know if anyone could put up with that forever." Neptune joked

"You want your face to end up as part of the pavement?" Blanc growled threateningly

Nova let out a sigh, "Neptune, now really isn't the time for jokes. Well, what about just calling Rom and Ram, you have a phone right Blanc?"

"Yeah...you're right." She sighed taking out her phone, turning it on making the call to Mina, the phone was ringing for a few moments before Mina finally answered

"Oh, Lady Blanc there you are, how many times have I told you not to turn your phone off!"

"Mina, are you alright, what about Rom and Ram? What's going on? Where are you?" She replied spitting out question after question

"Please calm down Lady Blanc, we're fine, I was able to get Rom and Ram out with me through a secret passage within the basilicom."

"Wait...the basilicom has a secret passage, why didn't I know about this?!" Blanc asked

At this, Mina's voice became a bit more panicked

"Er...well...you see, I had it made when you...well um...have a bad day so to speak. Or if I just want to get away from work for a while..."

"Mina...we're going to have a _long_ talk about this later, but for now, where are you?"

"W-we're at a safe house on the south side of town, just look for a small tea shop with several missing letters, you can't miss it."

Blanc silently ended the call, turning to Nova and Neptune, trying her hardest to keep her composure after being told what she had, Neptune and Nova were left standing stock still, the simmering rage on her face enough to make even a pro wrestler back off.

"Let's go." She growled

Not wanting to be yelled at the three made their way through the city, they stuck to as many alleys as they could find, dodging the groups of 'zombies' who wanted their heads on pikes. The weird part was that the people weren't trashing the stores or anything like that, in fact, as the group moved along they noticed that the 'zombies' were in fact heading somewhere. As to where, that didn't matter at the moment, as Blanc was focused more so on regrouping with her sisters and Mina at the moment.

Eventually, they managed to reach the specified location, a (very rundown looking) tea shop, that to all people on the outside, would look as if it were marked for demolition. The windows were boarded up, the blue paint for the sign was chipped away and like Mina had said, the name of the place had several missing letters, so even if one wanted to know what to call the place, it'd be impossible.

"Man, this place looks like something straight out of a horror movie..." Neptune muttered "If it weren't for the fact it were sunny out, I could definitely see it as one."

"You really think Mina and the twins are here…?" Nova asked

"Well, it fits the description...let's try knocking I guess?" Blanc said moving forward, she gave the door a harsh bang, and a full minute passed before the door opened slightly

"Thank goodness, Lady Blanc! All of you hurry and get inside." Mina exclaimed urging the three in, what they saw...was quite the sight to say the least. While the outside of the shop looked completely derelict and uninviting, the inside was the complete opposite. It was basically like walking into a well furnished hotel room. There was a big screen tv, A normal fridge as well as a mini-fridge, a bookshelf that held numerous books on them, a few gaming systems and there was even a freshly made bed with clean blankets laid out on it.

"Whoa, it looks like you could live in this place for months!" Neptune exclaimed

"Big sister!" Rom and Ram called running towards her, both of them giving her a big hug

"There you two are, I'm glad to see you're safe...same to you Mina."

The oracle merely giggled before giving a small thank you, "It is nice to see you as well Lady Blanc."

"As nice as this all is, do any of you know exactly why everyone in Lowee wants to horrifically murder Blanc?" Nova asked

"I have no idea, I was at the basilicom, looking after Rom and Ram, when I heard a commotion going on outside. When I went to check, there was a group of people all clamoring to get into the basilicom, and when they saw my face, they got livid and started rushing inside, I don't think they got too far though, the guards were more than enough to handle them, but just to be safe, I took Rom and Ram and escaped."

"So you've got no idea what's going on either." Blanc muttered after the explanation was finished.

"I'm afraid not...but maybe we can figure something out? I hope you don't mind Lady Blanc, but given the recent attack on Lowee, I went ahead and notified the other goddesses."

"No, that's fine, we'll wait for them to arrive and then go from there."

And so the group laid low for a while. Thankfully for them, there didn't seem to be any of the 'zombies' nearby and it was only about an hour or so before Noire and Vert arrived, Neptune had sent a message to Nepgear, but that was mostly for her to sit tight and keep Planeptune safe with Uzume (in other words, Neptune was shirking the work off on the two of them), Mina having told them where to head to so they could avoid the 'zombies.'

"Alright then everyone, now that we're all here, let's get to the topic at hand: There's something very wrong with the citizens right now and we need to figure out what." Mina stated

"That's quite the issue, and I assume no one here has any idea why?" Noire asked

The others shook their head, they were completely in the dark, and as far as they knew the citizens of Lowee had gone crazy of their own accord.

"That's not good, we need information of some sort before we can properly act." Vert said with a sigh, "That said, I did notice something strange about the townspeople when Noire and I arrived."

"And what would that be?" Blanc asked with a raised eyebrow

"The people...they did not attack us, I locked eyes with several of the possessed and yet...they merely turned away and continued making their way to the center of town. Perhaps they aren't after any other goddesses but Blanc, Rom, and Ram."

"But then why would they chase me and Nova then, last I checked neither of us are Blanc!" Neptune exclaimed

"Well..." Nova started "We didn't really think about it? I mean, we just started running away without a second thought since there were so many people."

"I see...so then, let's operate on that, perhaps the best way to gather information is for anyone _but_ Blanc or the twins to be seen, we just need someone to go out and handle that for us." Mina said turning her head to Nova

"Huh...you want me to do it?" He said looking at her incredulously "But I just got out of that all and-"

"You're a man aren't you? Noire asked

"You can't say you're willing to let us fragile women go out instead?" Vert added with mock fear on her face

"You're the OC Nova, you gotta show how cool you are!" Neptune cheered

"You do this and I promise Rom and I won't prank you anymore!" Ram said with confidence, while Rom nodded, giving him a genuine smile of encouragement. Dammit his heart! Rom was too pure, too good, how could he say no to that...w-well, he didn't have to! Maybe Blanc would say something!

"What are you waiting for? You're my ghost writer, so get out there already!" Blanc shouted

Well...that's not exactly what he wanted to hear, but with all the women coming together and giving him all kinds of look, he had no choice but to swallow his pride.

"Fine, I'll do it, I'll figure out what's going on. But if I die, I hope you know I'll be blaming all of you!"

And with that he left the safe house, slamming the door behind him before sighing

" _You're a real sucker you know that right?"_ Gray Heart said laughing

"Oh shut up, what was I supposed to do?!"

" _Oh I don't know...maybe refuse them? Whatever, look, just do your best to not die alright? If you kick die then I'm screwed as well, and I very much like living thank you."_

"Technically, you're not alive anyway."

" _Semantics, now get going already."_

"Alright alright, why are the women in this dimension so pushy?" he grumbled, making his way away from the safe house and back onto the main streets of Lowee. At first Nova was doing his best to avoid some of the crowds he saw, but at one point he'd accidentally walked in front of one...who did nothing to him at all.

"Excuse me." The man said with a slurred voice before walking on...it was strange for sure, but this definitely confirmed what Vert had figured out earlier on. With that being the case, Nova made his way through the streets normally. There were some passerby who were just confused at what was happening, and so they merely stared at what all was happening, he couldn't particularly blame them, he'd been through his own share of weird moments, but he wasn't so sure if this stumped them or not. As he entertaining that train of thought, he found himself in the center of town finally, with many of the 'zombies' standing around, there was a makeshift stage at the center of the crowd and standing upon it was Reverend Badd, a smug look on his face as he grinned at all the people standing before him.

" _Well, looks like we found the culprit, I didn't expect this guy to turn up again so soon, well...what are you waiting for? Go beat him up already!"_ Gray Heart said from within his head

"No...no we can't do that, for now we need to watch this guy, see if we can't figure out how he's controlling all these people." He whispered

"My glorious children!" exclaimed loudly "I thank you for coming to me this day and for finally accepting the truth of my words! For today, we have come together to rid this world of the blasphemous CPUs known as Lady White Heart and the White Sisters!"

The crowed roared in acceptance, a stark contrast to how lifeless they looked when Nova and the others had initially saw them.

"Now my children, I know that the harlots escaped you, but don't worry! It is only a matter of time before we find this vile goddess and put her out of her misery, this nation will prosper under the guidance of the Tree of Wisdom!"

" _Man this guy must really love to listen to himself talk..."_

"Go my children and search for White Heart and the White Sisters, find them and bring them to me, together we can overcome the evil that plagues Lowee so that we may all bask in the truth that I so graciously provide!"

"What a load of shit." Nova muttered, the crowd began to disperse, all of them moving out to search for Blanc and her sisters. He'd have to leave for now, Badd was still watching the crowd disperse, and if he hung around then he'd be out in the open and that wouldn't be good. He rounded a corner, waiting there for a bit until he felt like the last of the brainwashed citizens were gone. He went back, and he could just barely see Reverend Badd heading off to somewhere else on the opposite side of where he was.

He had to follow him! At least until he found out how he was controlling the people. He kept a fair distance away, keeping his eye on Reverend Badd. It was a bit difficult as the man was constantly checking over his shoulder or turning around constantly to make sure that no one was following him at all.

" _You know, this is giving me an idea for a new stealth based game. I seriously need to sit down with Nitroplus and the others and hash out the details."_ Gray Heart said with a chuckle

"Now is _not_ the time!" Nova replied, keeping trying his best to stay hidden as Reverend Badd looked over his shoulder once again. It wasn't until the old man ducked into a building that Nova finally felt at ease. The building itself didn't look like anything too special, there weren't any guards around or anything like that by the looks of it, still the door was closed and he couldn't just simply walk inside, walking around the building he managed to spot Reverend Badd with his back towards one of the windows, with a phone in his hand and so he stooped down low to listen in.

"I must say, this device of yours is quite interesting. To think you could send out a fake patch for a video game and use it to hypnotize the citizens! But...do I really need to keep this little machine running all the time? Huh...no, I'm not doubting you! It just seems a bit odd, and I had to lug the thing here, it was good that I still had some sympathizers within Lowee to help out. Well, I'll take your word for it, with this, I'm sure White Heart will fall in due time. Yes, I'm sure you're busy with making some moves in Leanbox, so I'll leave it to you."

" _Now that's interesting..."_ Gray Heart murmured

"Yeah, let's get back to the others, this is some valuable information." Nova said, moving away from the building as quietly as possible, the last thing he wanted was to be spotted after finding out such useful information, so he quickly made his way back to the safe house. Once there he quickly filled the others in.

"That... _BASTARD_! Blanc roared while completely crushing the can of nepbull she'd been holding, the contents spilling all over her hand

"L-Lady Blanc, please calm down!" Mina exclaimed trying to placate her

"Now now, crushing soda cans won't solve our problem, that kind of reaction won't do you any good Blanc." Vert said with a small smile "But the good news is, we at least know how Reverend Badd

is controlling the citizens."

"So lets get over there and kick his butt!" Ram exclaimed "I was in the middle of planning my next prank before all of this happened!"

"You were planning to prank me again?!" Nova cried, to which Ram suddenly went quiet

"Anyway, we need to think of a plan, we can't just go in guns blazing." Noire sighed "If we did, there's no doubt we'd have to end up fighting all those innocent people."

"Oh I'm sure we can just give em' a nice bonk on the head and that'll fix everything, I mean, it did when we were in the zombie spinoff, I'm pretty sure we beat up the same students dozens of times and they turned out okay in the end." Neptune said with a grin

While everyone remained silent as the 4th wall mended itself, Noire decided to continue on with what she was saying.

"What if we went about this another way: Since the controlled citizens are after you and your sisters, why not have you three act as distractions? You can lure the controlled people away, while we fight Badd."

"What the...you want me to run?! Hell no!"

"Well, you don't have to run for long, if what Nova said is right, then there's some sort of machine putting out a signal or something to keep the people controlled, so if we send someone to destroy that, you can join us later on." Vert added

Blanc could only grumble, she had to admit that the plan was perfectly sound...for the most part at least.

"The bigger problem though is that Reverend Badd, has that anti-sharicite weapon, and I don't think any of you can get too close without that thing weakening you all."

"He's right, that weapon of his slowed me down and weakened my attacks too. Much as it pains me to say it, we can't just bum rush him." Blanc sighed

"Well then, we just gotta leave it to Nova this time, It's time for your OC powers to come into play!" Neptune exclaimed "He'll wipe the floor with Badd and then we can have him buy us a feast!"

"I'm not doing that." Nova said flatly

"I like that idea actually..."Noire said with a smile

"As do I...a gentleman would surely treat his friends to a good meal...wouldn't he?" Vert said with a pointed glance, though she had a smile on her face, one could easily discern the mischievous nature behind it.

"I quite like that idea, you can treat Rom and Ram too...Mina as well." Blanc said

"Huh...but...m-my credits..." Nova muttered with despair

" _Please tell me you're not going to actually let them walk all over you like this."_

"You'll take us all out to eat right…?" Vert asked

"But I don't think I have enough credits for that and-"

" . .Yes?" There was a bit of a dangerous edge to her voice

"Ugh...fine, if we get out of this alive, I...guess I can treat you all to a little something."

" _You pansy..."_

Nova ignored Gray Heart's chiding of him and decided to continue on, "So we've got a plan, when should we pull it off?"

"Let's wait until nightfall, moving under the cover of night would be a lot easier than just flying in broad daylight." Noire said

The others all nodded in agreement, and decided to kill time in the safe house until then.

 _ **Several hours later**_

The group were set on their plan, though Blanc was still quite annoyed that she and her sisters were purely bait for this little plan, but even so she was still going to go along with it if everything worked out in the end. Heading out from the safe house everyone went their separate ways for the plan to take place. Nova was heading towards the square again, the numerous 'zombies' were all seen making their way there again...probably to listen to another rally from Badd. Blanc, Rom and Ram were accompanying him, as this would be perfect for drawing away the citizens under his control. Neptune, Noire, and Vert had gone towards the building that Nova had mentioned, in an attempt to destroy whatever it was that Badd had had locked up in there.

Once they reached the square, Blanc and the twins gave Nova a look, which meant for him to lay in wait as they put the plan into action.

"My brothers and sisters, children of the Tree of Wisdom, I thank you for your continued effort to search down those detestable CPUs, though we haven't found them, I'm sure we can remove them from Lowee and be all the better for it!"

The crowd gave groans of approval (what more could they do after all?) as Reverend Badd continued.

"I implore you to continue the search, even if it forces you without sleep or food or water, finding her should be our top most priority!"

"How about you shut your ass and look over here!" Blanc snarled as the group of people turned to face her and her sisters.

"Yeah, you big meanie, where do you get off on doing this to Lowee?! We're gonna mess ya up bad, right Rom?" Ram exclaimed

"R-right!" Rom exclaimed trying her best to put on the most angriest face she could muster (which turned out to be a pout at best that would more than likely melt the hearts of the citizens if they weren't in their hypnotized state.

"And so the false goddesses show themselves at last!" Badd exclaimed "Look no further children, for these women are the cause of all your troubles and all your woes! Capture them and bring them to me, so that they may be put to the sword as atonement for their crimes!"

As if on cue, the hypnotized citizens all began making their way towards the CPUs, their bodies surging forward in what could only be described as a tidal wave of people all making their way to a singular location.

"Alright you two, just as we planned it." Blanc said calmly before turning around and beginning to run. She wanted to transform, but that would be a waste of energy since she had no intention of harming them at all. The three continued fleeing, until the square was completely empty of people.

" _Now is your time to shine Nova, think you can handle it without needing to call on me?"_ Gray Heart asked

"It's no problem, I've faced worse than some religious whack job." he said stepping onto the stage that Badd had been on

"Hmmm...who are you?" Badd muttered looking him over "Wait...you're that boy...the one from Steamport right?"

"You could say that." Nova replied brandishing the Greatsword "I'm here to put an end to all this, of course if you come quietly..."

"I see...that explains why White Heart decided to run instead of fighting me, that woman would have charged at me without even thinking about it, unless some other element were at play...which I assume would be you."

"You're a lot smarter than I thought you would be..."

"Of course I am, I did do some work in the business world after all. But that doesn't matter." Badd said as he tapped a button on his wrist, causing his mech armor to appear around him. "I'll dispose of you quickly with this!" He exclaimed drawing the anti-sharicite blade and pointing it at Nova who snarled at him in disdain

" _Damn...that thing...It's even affecting me like this."_ Gray Heart groaned _"Please, destroy it quickly..."_

"I got it, you just sit tight and watch." Nova muttered back

The two mean stared at one another, each sizing the other up before finally making a lunge towards each other, their weapons clashing with a clang of steel against steel. The two broke off before re-engaging again, the anti-sharicite blade glowing in a sickly red color.

 _ **Meanwhile….**_

Neptune, Noire Vert, and Mina had made their way through the city undetected, following the directions Nova had left them until they were in front of the building he'd been at it. It seemed unremarkable for the most part, looking to be a place for storage rather than any sort of evil base or anything which left Neptune feeling sorely disappointed by the whole thing.

"Aw come on seriously? A storehouse, they couldn't think of a better place to put it?" She whined

"Oh be quiet, you should be happy that it's in such a plain place instead through some sort of multi-floored dungeon." Noire chided

"Oh come on Noire, everyone knows that part of the fun is making your way through the dungeon to get to the objective at the end, regardless of if it's treasure or a machine you need to destroy."

"On this I will agree, I absolutely adore a good dungeon raid with my guild mates in 4 Goddesses Online." Vert said with a wistful sigh "A shame that new content has been so sparse lately."

"Oh would you two just be quiet and get a move on already?!" Noire huffed, the twin-tailed girl's irritation already beginning to reach its peak while being with the two of them.

"Please everyone, calm down. We're this close, now isn't the time." Mina said calmly, the three goddesses deciding that she was right, and now was the time for action, not fun at the expense of Noire. That could come later.

The four of them moved closer to the machine, it was big and mostly unassuming looking with only two or three buttons on it, however, on top of it was a glowing red icon of some sort. What that meant, the group weren't too sure, but it surely couldn't be anything good, especially if this is what was keeping the townspeople under Badd's control.

"Well then, let's get ready to smash it!" Neptune said with enthusiasm, she raised her sword, ready to slash the machine to bits when as if on cue a spider-liked monster dropped down in front of her, causing her to leap back in a mixture of disgust and surprise.

"W-what on earth is _that_?!" Noire yelled, a closer look at the spider showed, that upon closer inspection, some of its legs looked as if they were just bone, there were bits of machine here and there all over the body, and it's maw had to extremely threatening looking pincers on the front. For all intents and purposes, it was an extremely macabre sight that no one in the room really knew how to react to.

"It's part machine and part monster...regardless, we must defeat it at once." Vert said with a flourish of her lance, the others and agreed and readied themselves. Noire, Vert, and Neptune all transformed into their HDD forms, while Mina hung back, ready to provide support with her magic.

"This thing is huge, just how on earth did we miss it…?" Purple Heart murmured as the spider roared at them.

"It doesn't matter, just kill it!" Black Heart bellowed

The spider took this moment to catch Black Heart off guard, swiping at her with one of its legs, knocking her through a wall of the building.

"Cross-Combination!" Purple Heart exclaimed slashing at the spider with her sword, while she'd done some damage, the spider wasn't cut to pieces like she'd intended for it to be. It reeled back in pain sure, but it definitely wasn't dead.

"This thing...it's tougher than we thought." she muttered "Everyone be careful!"

Mina moved to cast some magic at the monster, attempting to freeze it in its tracks, however, she stopped, when a cannon rose from out of its back, with it aiming at Mina before firing. Mina would have been hit, but was thankfully saved by Black Heart who had reentered the fray.

"T-thank you." She muttered out

"No problem." Black Heart replied

Not wasting any time the CPU of Lastation, got into the fray. Slashing at the beast in an attempt to severe some of its legs, but to no avail.

"Dammit, how tough is this thing?" She growled flying back a bit, to give herself some distance.

"I have an idea, keep it distracted and make an opening for me!" Green Heart called out

Purple Heart, Black Heart, and Mina did as told, all of them slashing and stabbing at the creature, or casting magic as it opened fire with the canon from its back. The others dipped and dodged while attacking, while Mina managed to freeze its legs, halting it in place.

While the creature struggled to get itself free from the ice, Purple Heart took this chance to go for the cannon on its back, slicing clean off resulting in a maddening roar from the monster.

"That's it!" Green exclaimed as she flew towards the monster with surprising speed, thrusting her spear directly into one of its eyes. Another maddening roar as the monster was now in excruciating pain, being blinded in one eye and missing an appendage. With all it's thrashing it spit out some sort of green goop from its mouth, which sprayed all over the place, just missing the party barely. The areas that had been hit began to all melt away.

"Oh my, acidic spit, this reminds me of one of the monsters from 4GO, I wonder if this thing has any interesting drops..."

"This really isn't the time to be thinking of this as a video game!"

"Oh come now Noire, it's perfectly fine, this thing is blind in one eye and we have the advantage, what could go wr-"

Her words were cut off as the spider managed to shoot her square in the chest with a bit of spit, which sent her flying back towards the wall, the sides wearing away a bit.

"This is disgusting!" Green Heart exclaimed as bits of her suit wore away, bits of her outfit tearing away slightly, she was lucky that it was tough enough to resist it and that not too much more was revealed which was amazing given how risque Green Heart's armor in particular looked when compared to the other goddesses.

"And for some sicko out there, this is probably fulfilling some perverse fantasy..." Mina muttered, to which Black Heart and Purple Heart, silently nodded agreement

"Let's do our very best not to get hit with that attack..." Black Heart said "Vert will you be okay?" Normally, she'd take more time to tease her friend about this, but now definitely was not the time for that.

"Yes...just fine...if not a bit embarrassed." She replied flying back up to join them with a slight blush on her face. "I sincerely hope nothing bad comes from this..." She muttered.

"Well, no use worrying. We have this thing on the ropes, so lets finish it in one shot, everyone, together!" Purple Heart exclaimed

The others agreed all pointing their weapons at it.

"Lacy Dance!"

"Rainy Ratnapura!"

"Lightning Bolt!"

"And to cap it all off, Neptune Break!"

What followed next was the beast being slashed at by Black Heart, stabbed repeatedly by Green Heart, shocked by Mina, and as Purple Heart finishing it, by delivering several slashes at the monster before slamming into it sword first, completely destroying it and the machine in one fell swoop. Smirking confidently, Purple Heart floated down from the wreckage she'd just caused

"Well, I'd say that went well, one evil mind control device destroyed!"

"Did you really have to show off with a move like that…?" Black Heart said with a sigh

"I was not showing off!"

"Totally showing off." Mina and Green Heart said in unison

"Let's just regroup with the others, that should have broken the mind control on the people right?"

"Let's find Lady White Heart just to be sure." Mina replied, the four of them leaving the area a smoking heap as they moved out, the building falling apart not even a moment after they got out.

 _ **Back at the town square…**_

Nova and Reverend Badd clashed with one another once more, the sword strikes clanging loudly throughout the square. The fight was rough, since Reverend Badd had that mech armor on his side, which increased his strength significantly while he was inside it, but Nova was far more skilled which evened the playing field for him.

"Hmph, you're far more skilled than I thought for an upstart CPU...though I wonder why my weapon has no effect on you."

"Sorry, I don't feel like sharing the secret behind that." He said before dashing back in to attack. As Badd came to block his attack, he stopped short, using his momentum to swing to the other side catching him off guard.

"Urgh, why you little!"

"Yeah, whatever, can you just give up already, I'm not too fond of beating on the elderly."

"I'd say I'm not that old, but I won't lie to myself in that regard. Still, if you think that you can best me being a mere boy, then you're sorely mistaken!"

Raising the sword above his head, Badd made a wide swing with his sword, a large wave of red energy moving towards Nova at a surprising speed. He brought up his sword to block it, the energy trying to overcome him and knock him away.

" _Get rid of it, that energy is agonizing!"_ Gray Heart screamed from within his head, which was enough to spurn Nova on as he deflected the blast of energy away.

"Not possible, what kind of CPU are you?!" Badd exclaimed

"Technically I'm not a CPU at all." He mutters before channeling some of his will into the sword, causing it to glow a faint blue color. "But, depending on who you ask, I'm something _much_ worse than that."

The glow didn't go unnoticed by Badd, who was caught by surprise. "What are you doing…?! What kind of power is that?!"

His questions went unanswered as Nova began closing in on him, his sword strikes coming in faster than expecting, putting Badd on the defensive. He was doing his best to block the sword strikes, but it was becoming increasingly difficult for him to keep up. Badd had to do something to get out of this and quick.

"Tenacious little brat. Brothers, Sisters, come to me!" he exclaimed as several of the 'zombified' citizens appeared from seemingly out of nowhere "Now go, and bring this heathen to justice!"

However, the citizens didn't move and instead just sort of sat there, staring at Nova "Didn't you all hear me? Go and strike him down!"

"Eh, he's not the goddess." One slurred out

"Yeah, I only want to destroy White Heart." Another spoke

"W-WHAT?!"

"Come on guys, let's go get White Heart." A third chimed in, the citizens leaving Badd on his own.

"What on earth was that?!" Badd exclaimed dumbfounded

"Looks like you're shit out of luck Reverend!" Nova yelled before moving in for another attack. Badd brought his blade up to block, but this time, Nova had put more energy into his attack, this time completely breaking the anti-sharicite blade in two, as well as the mech hand that was holding it.

"N-not possible!" Badd exclaimed in disbelief, this armor is made with some of the latest technology out there!"

"Looks like you got a defective model, you may want to look into getting a new one." Nova said pointing the tip of his blade at Badd's neck.

"N-now calm down there, surely you wouldn't hit a man with glasses would you?"

"I would...and have, several times."

At that, shut up quickly "We-well it is of no matter, the machine which still controls the citizens is fully active, and even if you could get close, I left a small surprise waiting for anyone who gets to close!"

It was then that off in the distance a small rumble could be heard as both Nova and Badd looked at it to see a building toppling down.

"Oh...Oh no..." Reverend Badd mumbled out.

It was an hour before Blanc and the others all reconvened in the town square, the townspeople having returned to their senses, with Blanc looking irritated that the people of Lowee were all staring at Green Heart's tattered battle outfit.

"With all this bullshit over, I think it's time I had some words with the Reverend here." Blanc growled out while cracking her knuckles threateningly

"P-please don't kill me..." Reverend Badd whimpered

"After all the crap you put me and my family through, you'll be lucky to get off with just death!"

Everyone turned away as the screams of Reverend Badd echoed throughout the square, some people flinching as they heard the numerous thuds of fist against body.

"Oof, this is reminding me of the Ultradimension...at least Plootie isn't here to join in...I think anyone here could stand to see any of what she'd do firsthand..." She muttered to herself

"Mina...should Blanc be punching him there?" Rom asked, making the mistake to look back

"Avert your eyes Rom, we don't want you seeing any of that."

"O-okay..."

 _ **Meanwhile in a small town nearby Lowee...**_

C-Sha had been following some leads she'd had on the idea of where this Reverend Badd character could have gotten off to. Finding any leads on him had been quite the hassle, but she'd managed to talk to some of the townspeople here and some had claimed to see him not too far away from here close to the nearby mountains. As she began to leave town to investigate, C-Sha couldn't help but look back towards the direction of Lowee

"Huh...can't help but think I missed out on something. Nah...I'm just imagining things."

 **END**

* * *

 **Well, that brings this chapter to a close. Thank you all for reading and I suppose the fun fact for this chapter would be that C-Sha was originally planned to be back in the city helping out, but I felt that'd make things even longer than they already are. That said, I hope to see you next time!**


	11. Chapter 11: A Weird Yet Calming Day

**In which this chapter is finally out! Sorry it took so long!**

 **RandoHelpo: I'm not sure if you're still reading but, I feel I should point out, that in the particular scenes that Nova's against the wall against the girls, it's mostly being played up for a joke, since he isn't too sure how to counter four women ganging up on him like that. That said though, some of your other points were actually coming up in this chapter! It was just that in the last few, the characters were more concerned with current problem at hand. Now as for the group back in Steamport, they might very well come back at some point in the future, as for any of the small errors, I'm just one guy doing this, so I'm sorry if I miss anything. Let it be known though, that Nova's not a wuss, he's just a bit out of his element here with the quirky nature of Gameindustri's cast.**

* * *

In a secret lab, hidden within Leanbox, there is a man who was enthralled in the art of experimentation. He would take numerous monsters (or rather, pay some hapless adventurers to capture them for him) and experiment on them in a myriad of ways. Not too many monsters survived, but those that did became precious pets of his. It had taken years, but he'd slowly amassed quite a number of monsters under his care, each one becoming visual proof of his progress over the years. He'd been wondering if one could actually control monsters, use them as weapons in the case of war or to secure personal interests. It would be his magnum opus! The people of Leanbox would sing his praise and he'd be in the history books!

Or so he thought…

Instead, he now was sitting in the dark lab, his idea having been shot down all those years ago. Enraged, the man took his life savings and bought this place, continuing his experiments in secret for a while. The numerous incidents that took place in Gamindustri had really slowed him down though. Honestly, he had _no_ idea how the goddess of Planeptune managed to get into the situations she did. That whole bit with the ancient nation of Tari appearing was something he never expected to see in his life time...and then there was ASIC before that. That witch Arfoire had caused far too much chaos for him to continue experimenting, and some of her forces had even attacked his home, so he was stuck defending himself till that entire fisaco blew over as well.

He couldn't help but groan while remembering all of this, sitting in front of his computer monitor. Still, things had been looking up so far, even if Badd had gone and gotten himself captured. The man was about to get up and get himself some coffee to quench his thirst, when a video call came through, though he didn't feel like talking that much. A quick look at the name showed it was one of his benefactors, so he was obligated to answer the call despite his feelings.

"Hello Ms. Phoenix, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

The woman with beautiful red hair, and striking blue eyes looked less than amused "This isn't the time for games doctor. Badd has failed and has been taken into custody in Lowee."

"Is that so?" asked the Doctor "What of my little creation?"

"Destroyed from what I can gather."

"Tch...how irritating. Still, even with Badd captured, it makes no difference for us."

"Perhaps so, but be careful. The goddesses could be making their way towards you soon."

At this the Doctor let out a chuckle "Let them come, my pets will happily welcome them, and then we'll be rid of them. I just recently outfitted a few of them with some anti-sharicite weapons, so if they do show up, I'll get some interesting data! What's more...that boy, the one who is sharing a body with Gray Heart…I don't think I've ever heard of a phenomena such as that...a goddess using a regular human body as a host to avoid death? I find it really interesting..."

Phoenix had to recoil from the look the Doctor had on his face, it was beyond creepy, his smile twisted and demented, more befit for one who had gone completely mad. She hurriedly ended the call, leaving the Doctor to his thoughts, his lab echoing with insane laughter as he thought of the possibilities on what he could find out.

Back at Lowee, things had been well...interesting since the incident with Reverend Badd. After his capture, the goddesses were able to learn several things, such as that each nation had someone working with them, that Badd was actually an old businessman in Lowee who had made his own game company that crashed and burned hard, and most interestingly, when pressed about the anti-sharicite weapons, he stated that he really didn't know where they came from. All he knew is that the person who gave them to him and the others was simply called 'The Benefactor'. Even after hours of interrogation, that was all the information that could be pried from him. When asked about the monster that Neptune and the others had fought, he claimed that some kooky scientist from Leanbox created that thing and really, he wasn't too fond of it, claiming it to be too creepy.

With that being the case, the group had decided to reconvene in Leanbox. While Vert returned to her nation to prepare a few things, the others were hanging out in Blanc's basilicom until they got the go ahead from her. And how had the others been spending their time…?

"GRAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" White Heart roared as her axe connected with Gray Heart's blade

"Stupid Thunder Tits, she'll never let me leave this down, I'll break her in two!" White Heart yelled, slamming her weapon into Gray Heart's repeatedly

" _Boy, she's really pissed isn't she?"_ Nova said from within Gray Heart's mind

"Yes...I didn't think the goddess of Lowee would have such a...complex, are you sure challenging her to a sparring match was a good idea?"

" _Well, it's how I blow of steam sometimes, so I figured it'd work for her..."_

"I don't think it's working at all...you're a bit more agile than me, so let's work that to our advantage. I'll switch out for now."

Passing control over to Nova, White Heart couldn't help but let out a scoff

"Oh what's this now? Is Gray heart running away?" White Heart taunted

"Nothing like that, just trying out some new tactics. Come on then! Show me what you got!"

Answering his call, White Heart came at him, swinging her axe with great force, to which Nova dodged easily, leaving her open so he could get a solid hit in with his sword.

"GAH, YOU SON OF A BITCH!" White Heart roared, before bringing her axe back around for another hit

"Crap, Gray Heart, tag in!"

Another transformation and now Gray Heart was here to take the brunt of the attack, just barely getting her sword up in time to block the attack, even though it sent her skidding back a bit. The key problem with Nova fighting any of the goddesses was that he couldn't take too many hits from them. He was a lot more hardy than the average person, but with a big ass axe coming at him? Yeah, he couldn't survive that...well not without feeling immense pain of course.

"Nova, I don't think this is working, she just seems angrier than before."

" _Alright then, we'll just have to knock her down and then try talking it out."_

"Got it, sounds better than this situation for sure."

"STOP MUMBLING AND LET ME HIT YOU!" White Heart roared flying towards Gray Heart at a break neck pace, this was exactly what Gray Heart wanted though as it set White Heart up for her attack. She was so angry that she'd forgone any real strategy or planning outside of 'Hit Nova/Gray Heart _really_ hard, so this was perfect. Gray raised her sword, holding it like one would a baseball bat

"Now I've got you! Shocking Smash!" Gray Heart exclaimed, swinging her blade so that the flat end hit White Heart square in the face, causing her to go spiraling back into the wall.

"Think that worked…?" Gray Heart muttered

" _Well, only way to really find out..."_

Gray Heart nodded and floated over towards White Heart, ready to jump back in a moments notice if the angry goddess was still conscious. Thankfully for Gray Heart, she was knocked out from the force of the attack and had reverted to her human state.

"Good she's out, let's get her to her room and wait for her to wake up." Gray Heart said lifting Blanc in her arms.

Inside Blanc's room Gray Heart had let Nova regain control, claiming that she wasn't really one for 'talking things out' or so she put it. As the brunette began to stir, Nova made sure to slide his chair a little bit away, if only so he could make a good escape if he needed to.

"Ugh...what the hell happened…? I was fighting Gray Heart and...got knocked out."

"Yeah uh...sorry about that." Nova said rubbing his head "You okay?"

"Yeah...yeah I'm fine. Thinking about I think I got just a bit too into it."

"It's fine, but is this really something worth getting mad over?"

Blanc scowled at him "Sh-shut up, you don't know what it's like!"

"Look, I don't think it's that big a deal."

"Oh yeah, I bet you like them just like the others!"

Blanc was still irritated it seems, but of course she would be, after the whole fiasco with Reverend Badd, Blanc had claimed to feel a decrease in the shares of Lowee, while conversely Vert had felt an increase in her shares. Neptune, had taken it upon herself to check out the web on what actually led to it, and after looking at a place called N-chan, it turned out that many of the comments from Lowee users were praising Vert...and her bust. A lot of them were about her bust...in fact, _all_ of them were about her bust. This of course set Blanc off immensely as her rage had reached a boiling point quickly. and several of the others decided to give the girl a wide berth, and it was more than likely that Vert had left less so to 'prepare' things, but more so to avoid the wrath of Blanc. Still, Nova figured that he should at least do something to calm her down and not have her explode at everyone.

He would wisely avoid challenging her to sparring matches in the future.

"Look, Blanc, does it really matter?" Nova sighed

"Answer the question! Do you like that big boobed bimbo too?"

"Well I mean...Vert's er...assets aren't...bad or anything."

"Asshole..."Blanc muttered

"But hear me out, you're not bad yourself!"

This seemed to placate Blanc a bit as her scowl lessened, but she seemed a bit more relaxed if anything. "Well go on..."

"What…?

"What do you find about me that's so good?" Blanc asked

"Oh well, uh, you've got nice eyes!"

" _And you like her ass."_

"Your hair is great too!"

" _And you like her ass."_

"It's great hanging out with you and helping you write things."

" _And you like her ass."_

"Best of all, you don't eat me out of house and home like Neptune."

" _. .Ass."_

"GODDAMMIT GRAY HEART WILL YOU STOP SAYING I LIKE HER ASS?!"

It took a moment for Nova to realize what what he'd just (loudly) proclaimed as the entire room was silent, sure it was just the two of them, but the silence so far was staggering as Blanc looked at him with wide eyes before going back to her normal more subdued expression.

"Perv." Blanc stated bluntly

"What? No, that was Gray Heart, she kept saying that and it just came out so-!"

"Is it true though?" Blanc interrupted

"E-excuse me?"

"Well...do you...really like it?"

"I mean, well, yeah it's not bad when you're in your HDD form, the outfit you have on is great."

"Better than Vert's?"

"Well...if I have to be honest? Yes. I much prefer the fully clothed look than what she has going on. Shows just a bit too much skin if I have to be honest."

Blanc let out a triumphant smirk, while under normal circumstances she'd probably have punched him in the face, she had to admit that her self-esteem took a small hit from the recent share loss, and hearing someone say that they found her attractive, if even a little (without sounding like a creep mind you) was pretty satisfying. Even more so since she knew that Vert would inevitably tease her about this once she'd calmed down enough.

"Hmmm, thanks...you're still a perv, but really...thanks." Blanc said

" _Oh, let me out, I have an idea!"_ Gray Heart chirped,

Switching over, Gray Heart had a wide grin on her face, "Hey Blanc, I think I have an idea on how to get back at Vert."

At this Blanc raised an eyebrow, curious as to what she had to say, she wouldn't mind giving Vert some payback, as the goddess of Leanbox would routinely best her when it came to put downs and the like, so to hear of an idea where Blanc got to one up in her some way.

"I'm listening." Blanc said plainly

"Okay, so hear me out. From what I've gathered you're quite sensitive about your lack of...well breasts." Gray Heart started

"Losing interest..." Blanc growled angrily

"But, what if you had something that Vert didn't have? Something that despite all her flaunting of her chest, she has never been able to attain?"

"And that would be…?"

"A boyfriend."

There was a pregnant pause throughout the room as Blanc digested the words that had flown into her ears. Of course, Blanc being Blanc, responded in the expected way.

"ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FRIGGIN' MIND?!" She roared angrily "THAT'S NOT A FUNNY JOKE AT ALL!"

However, Gray Heart kept her cool and continued smiling "Then tell me Blanc, in all your years of knowing Vert, for all her bragging, has she _ever_ actually had a significant other? Anyone at all?"

Blanc went to raise her voice, but caught herself…Gray Heart was right actually, in all the years she'd known Vert...she'd never had any boyfriends or flings or anything. Well, not that Blanc knew of anyway. She started to put things together though and began smirking evilly.

"So if I show up with a lover, it'd make her a bit jealous since, even with that chest of hers, Thunder Tits hasn't gotten that far?"

"That's the general idea, I mean, it may not bother her at first, but she'd surely wonder what's so wrong with her after a while right?"

"Okay...but where are we gonna find a guy to play the part?"

At this, Gray Heart immediately switched over to Nova, allowing the two of them to stare at one another for a moment.

"Oh you've got to be kidding me."

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?!" Nova asked indignantly

"Look it's nothing personal, but I mean, you're my ghost writer! You can't have that kind of thing happening in the workplace."

" _Does she even know anyone else on such short notice?"_

"Do you even know anyone else willing to help on such short notice?" Nova repeated

"Well...no, but I mean..."

"If you think I'm unattractive, please just say so."

"Ugh...fine, FINE. I get it, so long as I get to mess with Thunder Tits a bit, I guess that'd be fine."

Once more Gray Heart appears on the scene, a smile on her face. "Great! Now then, we've got to make sure that neither she nor the others catch on to our little game."

"That's a good idea, what did you have in mind?" Blanc asked

"Kissing."

Once more the room went quiet as the weight of Gray Heart's words sunk into Blanc's mind

"W-what are you talking about?! What do you mean k-k-kissing?!"

"Well, couples kiss, that's what they do." Gray Heart said in a matter of fact tone "You've written that in one of your stories right?"

"Well...yes, but still-!"

"No buts, just think of it as getting proper material for your stories or something like that."

Those words managed to placate Blanc, the red tint on her face receding just a tiny bit. "Ye-yeah, it's just reference material. Bring Nova out here, l-let's get started."

Doing as she was told, Gray Heart, let Nova be in control again, the young man having a small blush on his face as well.

"So, we're doing this then?" He asked

"Yeah we are, and you better not tell anyone!"

"I won't! Let's uh...just get to it."

The two of them got closer and closer and then closer still, Nova, having to bend down a bit as he was far taller than Blanc and as he did he could feel Blanc's breath as their lips got closer. A part of him wanted to stop, but he'd already come this far and there was no going back now. Before he knew the two of them were touching lips, and he could feel Blanc trembling a bit, which caused him to instinctively grab her and pull her close holding her in place

" _Wow, you two are really going at it."_ Gray Heart said with a whistle

" _S-shut up, you're ruining it!"_ he thought back

The two finally finished making out after what felt like an eternity, the two pulling back from one another breathing heavily.

"That was...that wasn't so bad." Blanc heaved

"Y-yeah, same to you, uh, that's great reference material right?"

"Y-yes, it was very good. That's great ah...reference material."

"That's good."

The two stood there awkwardly in silence before a knock was heard on the door

"Lady Blanc, are you awake?" came the voice of Mina from behind the door

"Oh, Mina! Yeah, I'm fine, what's the problem?"

"Nothing major, a call from Lady Vert if you are willing to answer."

"Oh uh...Thunder Tits? R-right, must be about all the trouble going on...let's go Mina. Nova I'll um...talk with you later?"

"Yeah...sure." he replied getting up and leaving the room. His mind was a still in a haze from all that happened, and he was sort of on autopilot now. As he exited the room, Mina offered Blanc a mischievous smile.

"Congratulations Lady Blanc."

"Congratulations…? What are you talking about?" Blanc asked

"I wish you and Lord Nova a happy life together."

At that Blanc's face became a deep shade of scarlet "H-how long were you there?"

"Long enough to see you two practically eating one another."

"T-that was-! It was only for research for writing purposes!" Blanc sputtered

"Quite the in-depth research you did there Lady Blanc. If I had to guess, if I didn't come in here, then there would have been some really hardcore research going on" Mina teased

Blanc's eyes went wide at the implication Mina was making, her face (somehow) becoming even more red. "T-t-t-that wouldn't have happened! S-s-s-sshut up, let's go, we can't keep Thunder Tits waiting!"

With that the two made their way out of the bed room, Blanc walking as fast as possible, with Mina trailing behind her, laughing quietly to herself.

Meanwhile, Nova had retreated to the guest room he'd been staying in, his nerves in a state of disarray after the entire ordeal.

" _Man things went better than I thought."_ Gray Heart said laughing

"You just enjoy seeing me squirm don't you?"

" _Oh not at all, I mean, it was kind of cute seeing you two act like two highschool kids in love, but there's an even better upside to all this!"_

"And that would be…?"

" _Well aside from playing a nice little prank on Vert, just think about this, if you manage to win Blanc over, then we can have an alley over here in case things go south!"_

"What are you talking about? The other goddesses seemed pretty okay. I don't think you have to worry about wars breaking out or anything."

" _For now at least. Things can change quite quickly when it comes to dealing with other nations. And hey, if Blanc has the hots for you, then that could benefit Steamport quite nicely."_

"Look, I'm not going to seduce a girl to try and turn her against her friends or anything. And I'm pretty sure Blanc isn't that into me."

" _I dunno, I've seen her give you a few looks while helping her out with her books, and you spend time with her sisters too."_

"More like I spend time dodging books and whatever else Ram can throw at me."

" _Eh, same thing. For now, just stick with the general plan we came up with. I guarantee you'll win Blanc over."_

"You act like you have something that'd piss the others off into wanting to fight you."

"… _."_

"Uh...Gray Heart?" Nova asked

"… _..."_

"You can't be serious. What do you have that could anger them?"

" _I'd rather not say. Let's drop the subject, please."_

Realizing that he wouldn't get anymore words out of her, Nova went silent, deciding to nap until it was time to head over to Leanbox. When Blanc called for him and the other remaining goddesses to meet up. She updated them on the situation, saying that Vert had managed to get a few leads on their next target.

"About time, I'm not too fond of all the cold here." Noire huffed "It'll be nice to go somewhere a bit warmer."

"Yeah, right." Blanc replied

"Is something wrong Blanc? That was a pretty rude crack at Lowee Noire just made." Neptune said taking note of Blanc's weirdly calm reply

"Huh…? Oh yeah, right. Uh...shut up Noire."

"Are you okay…?" Noire asked, that insult was so mundane and lacked any of the punch Blanc usually had with her insults that Noire was genuinely caught off guard.

"Yeah I'm fine, let's get going."

With that, everyone gathered their things, ready to warp over to Leanbox. Mina and C-Sha were going to be keeping an eye on things, while Rom and Ram were tagging along with the others as well. As much as they enjoyed having fun with C-sha, they realized that their sister, as well as everyone else would need all the help that they could possibly get. Likewise, Uni and Nepgear had opted to help as well and would be meeting their sisters at the Leanbox Basilicom.

The arrival to Leanbox was a lot faster this time, though Nova had to clutch his stomach a bit after, he wasn't use to such a method of travel after all.

"Don't worry, you'll get used to that." Neptune said with a chipper tone "Walk it off tough guy!"

"Y-yeah...right..."

The group made their way up The Basilicom elevator and once on the top floor, they were greeted by Leanbox's CPU, with Nepgear and Uni already having arrived.

"Ah, it's good to see everyone here!" Vert said with a warm smile, "I hope things are going well, especially for you Blanc?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"Oh? The decrease in your shares isn't bothering you at all?"

"Ouch, and there goes Vert, busting out the insults already." Neptune whispered

"M-maybe we should get out of here before Blanc explodes..." Rom muttered

However, contrary to what everyone was expecting, Blanc remained pretty calm, not even batting an eye at the taunt Vert had thrown her way.

"It's no big deal. I'll just get them back, simple as that."

"Oh I see…?" Vert replied with a confused look on her face, that wasn't the usual way the back and forth went with her and Blanc, maybe she had to try something else?

"Really, you're not upset that the denizens of Lowee are starting to realize that the true mark of one's femininity lies within a certain area that you lack?"

Once more the others looked towards Blanc, expecting her to drop the calm and collected front she'd been putting on, but instead she merely smirked at Vert

"No that's fine, people will like what they like. Besides, I got something you'd never have, not even with those sacks of fat on your chest."

"S-sacks of fat? W-what on earth could you possibly have that I wouldn't?"

"A boyfriend." Blanc replied smugly

For what felt like the hundredth time that day, the entire room was quiet, All the goddesses present were in complete silence at this words, until Vert broke the silence.

"Pffft-hahahahaha!" she began laughing uncontrollably, the sheer absurdity of Blanc's words seeming far too humorous for her to keep a straight face for any amount of time.

"G-goodness Blanc, I know that one person actually proposed to you, but just because of that doesn't mean you have a boyfriend!" Vert said trying to stifle her laughing

"Y-yeah, you really had us going there for a second Blanc." Noire said with a chuckle

"I don't wanna be mean, but there's no way our sister could actually get a boyfriend...she's well...her!" Ram said in disbelief

Numerous murmurs of agreement were heard throughout the room, but Blanc didn't care at all, instead walking over to Nova and puckering her lips.

"Didn't think I'd be doing this again so soon..." he muttered

" _You're saying that as if you weren't looking forward it."_ Gray Heart said with a chuckle

The two brought their lips together in front of everyone. Though Nova felt he should be embarrassed, instead he just felt a sense of elation at getting to kiss a cute girl again. A full minute passed of the two just making out with one another before Vert finally worked up the nerve to speak.

"Tha-that's quite enough of that!" She exclaimed pulling the two apart "T-there will be none of...none of _that_ within the this Basilicom and the two of you cannot share a room, so don't even ask!"

"Can't stop me from sneaking in during the night!" Nova replied with a grin

"Don't you dare!"

"No promises Thunder Tits." Blanc sneered "Now let's get talking already."

She began walking away with Nova (and a still bewildered Vert) following behind her, leaving everyone else to reflect on what just occurred.

"Wow...they really are dating...I can't believe that they just did that." Uni said in amazement "I didn't think Blanc would be so bold to just kiss someone in front of all of us."

"It was surprising." Nepgear added "But I suppose I'm happy for Blanc, maybe now she won't be so quick to anger all the time?"

"I think it's icky!" Ram spat "Blanc could do so much better than that guy!"

"I-I think he's okay, he helped us in Lowee and beat that bad man." Rom whispered

"Tch...that is true..."

"Come on guys, we should all be happy! Blanc actually snagged a guy, I mean, the odds are pretty impossible, but it happened, so we should show them support, 100%!" Neptune chimed in with a smile

"That's surprisingly supportive coming from you Neptune." Noire said with a raised eyebrow "What brought that on?"

"Ya know Noire, despite my cute face, I'm capable of being a caring person when the time arrives. Now let's go, we got strategy to plan out!"

With that out of the way, the group all met in Leanbox's war room, A round table sitting in the middle of the room so that all of the goddesses could look upon one another equally, though Vert had a more uncomfortable look on her face, most likely from the stunt that Blanc pulled earlier.

"A-anyway, you all know why we're here. It's to get rid of the group that Reverend Badd was working with. Now, I've talked with some of the adventurer guild members here in Lowee, as well as some of the soldiers we have stationed around Leanbox, and I've been told there have been some sightings of odd monsters not unlike the one we faced back in Lowee.

"Will this one melt your clothes off too?" Neptune joked

"L-let's hope not. Anyway, I thought it would be nice to spend today getting ready. A bit of free time is fine, especially before we all get wrapped up in something like this."

"Should we have anyone staying behind to keep Leanbox safe?" Nepgear asked

"No no, Chika should be enough to keep Leanbox in check while we're out. Our main priority will be dealing with the monsters and whoever is behind it."

"And what if we run into any anti-sharicite weapons?" Uni said "I don't think we'll be of much help if those monsters have them or something."

"I guess that's where I come in then." Nova said with a nod "I'll do my best to take them out, you all can support me in one way or another."

"Well, Uni is the one with the guns, so that should be right up her alley. But all that can wait till tomorrow, come on, let's go play some games!" Neptune chirped, she hopped to her feet and dashed out of the room before anyone could say anything to her.

"W-well, I guess that covers that then." Noire sighed "We'll move out at noon tomorrow, so everyone be ready!"

Unanimous sounds of agreement rung out within the room with all the goddesses and as the others made their way out, Vert grabbed on Nova's arm, asking for him to stay behind for just a moment.

"Something wrong Vert?" He asked with a raised eyebrow

"No...well, I mean...the thing is..."

"...Yeeeees?"

"Okay, what do you see in Blanc! I don't mean that she's a terrible person or anything, but in all my years I never expected her out of all of us to find someone! Let alone the ruler of another nation! What does she have that I don't?" the panicked look on Vert's face was something that Nova didn't expect to see and he had to admit that it was pretty cute, so much so that he couldn't resist placing his hand on top of her head and patting it.

"Calm down Vert, you don't need to worry. I'm sure there's some guy out there waiting for you. You just have to keep looking, and hey, you're a goddess, so you've got a long time to search. As for me...well, Blanc isn't so bad when you get to know her. Sure she's got a bit of a temper..."

Vert gave him a flat stare.

"Okay, she has a really bad temper, but still she's not all bad, helping her write has been pretty fun."

"I-I see...I'm sorry for doubting you. You must really like her to say such words."

"You know it!" He replied ceasing his petting of Vert's head

"Hold on...no one said for you to stop." Vert mumbled with a small blussh

At those words, Nova smirked and once more resumed patting her head. "Heh, it's almost like I'm with my younger sisters again." he remarked

"You've got younger siblings?"

"Yeah, well kinda, one his just as old as me...sort of, but the other is only 9 years old. I would do this to them both to calm them down if they were upset about something."

"Goodness...so are you saying that in some way _I_ am like a younger sister to you?"

"I mean...I guess? At least when it comes to being just as adorable as one I suppose."

"Oh my, well I humbly accept, this will be quite the interesting experience to be the younger sister for once."

"Wait...what?"

"Worry not Nova, your new younger sister Vert will support you in any and all endeavors! Even with keeping Blanc from killing you should you break her heart in some way!"

"Okay hold on, I think you're getting the wrong idea he-"

"Come older brother, regal me with the details of our family from your home dimension, I'd love to learn more about them, especially our younger sisters." Vert said with a blush

"I mean sure but aren't you overreacting just a little?!"

"Nonsense, now come!"

With that, Nova was dragged off by Vert, the goddess off in her own little world.

" _Huh, I wasn't expecting that, but hey this is an interesting development!"_

"Oh shut up Gray Heart!"

As the boy was being taken to Vert's room, the two were intercepted by Blanc

"Oh there you are." She said calmly "Come with me, there's something I'd like to talk about."

"He can't!" Vert interjected, not giving Nova the chance to speak "My older brother and I have much to speak about!"

Blanc gave Vert a bewildered look at her words, looking at Nova for an explanation, but instead just receiving a shrug in response. He really didn't know how to explain it to her, and even if he could, he wasn't entirely sure if he wanted to.

"Right well, your 'older brother' has business with me."

"But-!"

"Don't worry Vert, I'll catch up with you in a bit alright? Besides, we've still got loads of time in the day right?" Nova said with a smile

"Well, I suppose you are correct...very well, it would be wrong of me to keep you from your..." Vert found her face scrunching up a bit as she said the next word "girlfriend...but please, do be quick."

Giving her a nod and a quick pat on the head, Nova began following behind Blanc, once the two were out of earshot of Vert, Nova let out a relieved sigh.

"Thanks for the save Blanc, I don't think I could have gotten away from hre if It weren't for you."

"No problem, but I really did want to talk to you though."

"Sure, about what?"

"W-well..." Blanc said blushing slightly "We need to be ready to keep this charade up. I'm sure the others will ask questions...especially Neptune, so I thought we could do some sharing, find out a bit more about one another?"

"I guess that makes sense, let's head to your room and talk then." Nova said

The two made their way to the room Blanc was staying in, and after getting comfortable, there was a bit of an awkward silence among the two.

"Well uh...you wanna start?" Nova asked

"Oh uh...right, so tell me, what are your plans for the future?"

"Plans for the future?" Nova asked with a raised eyebrow "You mean like what job I want to do or something?"

"Yeah, there's gotta be something right?"

"Yeah, I'm thinking of running a swordsmanship school one day."

"Huh...why that?" Blanc inquired, that was something really interesting, not too many people had that kind of thing in mind as a career choice.

At her question, Nova's expression darkened a bit. In all the time he'd been in Gameindustri (which admittedly, wasn't _too_ long) Blanc had never seen such an expression on his face, it was almost as if recalling the reason for why he took up the sword was causing him physical pain.

"Well..." Nova started, taking a deep breath "A long time ago, when I was about 8 years old...I got kidnapped."

"Kidnapped…?"

"Well, something like that? Held for ransom maybe? It doesn't matter, some guys wanted to take a few shots at my dad, so to lure him out, they grabbed me on my way from school one day. They shoved me in a cage and just...every few hours they'd kick the thing for fun."

"I...see."

"It was horrifying, I felt helpless, and the cage was small too. Really small, thanks to that, I'm not too fond of enclosed spaces. But I guess that's why I started practicing the sword. So I wouldn't' have to worry about something like that again...it ultimately didn't help since I actually got kidnapped again a couple years ago."

"You were kidnapped twice?!" Blanc asked

"Yeah, both were extremely shitty and I'd rather not go on about it any longer." He said, irritation beginning to rise in his voice

"Alright...but just...well what did your dad do when he rescued you?"

"He didn't." Nova said plainly

"What, your dad left you?!"

"Not exactly. My mom was restless and she couldn't keep herself from coming to save me."

"She pulled it off right? I mean, you're free now."

"She did...but, it wasn't pretty."

"It wasn't pretty…?"

"There was a lot of blood, let's just leave at that. Please."

"R-right, well uh..." The brunette stuttered. The awkwardness had increased tenfold thanks to that, and she was unsure of how to follow up on it.

"So, what about you? What's it like being the leader of an entire nation? Back at Steamport, I was doing a lot of paperwork." Nova said with a sigh

"It's kind of the same in Lowee, although, unlike Noire, I actually know how to have fun."

"You make it sound like Noire is all work and no play."

"She may as well be, trust me when I say that woman lives and dies by her schedule, it's amazing how she even finds time to do that cosplay hobby of hers."

"She does cosplay?"

"Yeah, she likes to pretend that we don't know. But I'm pretty sure all of Lastation knows anyway."

The two of them chuckled at the joke, before deciding to move on with the conversation.

"Well okay Blanc, I learned something about Noire, but what you? What kind of things do you like to do?"

"Well, I enjoy writing…"

"Oh trust me I know...what's your favorite genre then?"

At this Blanc tensed up "Well, I like adventures, with a dash of romance thrown in. You know, like a cool hero who meets a beautiful girl. Or a powerful queen who gives her all to protect her people, going so far as to die for them."

"I see..."

" _That second one hits a bit closer to more than I'm comfortable with. Change the subject please."_

As if sensing that something was wrong, Blanc took the initiative, deciding to steer the conversation in hopefully a more happy direction.

"So tell me a bit about your family, you've got siblings right?"

"Yeah, two sisters."

"Well, what are they like?"

Nova rubbed his chin "Huh...well where to start? Well Maritel, that's oldest girl, she's pretty nice, although sometimes she can be a bit sarcastic...and she likes to read others thoughts for the fun of it, but otherwise, I think you and her would get along. She definitely enjoys reading just like you."

Read others thoughts? Blanc wasn't sure how to respond to that, but she decided that he probably meant that she could be a bit like Vert, and be a bit too on the mark when making guesses about what someone was thinking.

"Okay, so what about the other one?" Blanc asked

"Ah, Eden, she's a real sweet girl. She's big into drawing, in fact, she could even put some of the professionals out there to shame." The look on Nova's face as he spoke of his sisters was quite wistful, one could almost call it sad, if they looked directly at his eyes.

"She doesn't like drawing in people's books does she?" Blanc asked, hoping to perk him up

"No, she's not like that, though I assume Ram does things like that?"

"Rom actually, I mean, don't get me wrong, Ram enjoys getting into trouble too, but Rom absolutely loves drawing all over some of my work. It can be annoying, but she never makes a large dent in the stock I have, so I'm never too mad."

"I'm surprised you manage to put up with them at all."

"Don't worry about it I've...grown used to it. Besides, I'm sure after all that happened recently, Ram actually likes you quite a bit."

"Sure, if book throwing is a form of affection."

The two continued to talk for hours, their conversation ranging from talking about their favorite foods to talking about what types of music they enjoyed, the two were really enjoying each other's company. It was only when Vert barged in and took Nova away that the two were separated. Vert claiming that she and her new older brother needed to bond more to make up for lost time (which baffled Nova, as he had only known Vert for a very short while). Still, it was nice to be able to spend some time so wistfully like this, because the following day was sure to be hectic, if not downright deadly.

As Nova lay in bed, getting some much needed rest for the following day, Gray Heart herself couldn't help but let out a chuckle.

" _This is good. This is really good...so far things are going just as I wanted them to! If things keep up like this, then Steamport will be safe for the foreseeable future..."_

 **END**

* * *

 **I'm not sure how many people are aware, but the bit about Blanc being proposed to _actually_ happened. I don't mean in the game itself, but someone in real life actually sent an email to IFI asking if they could marry Blanc...and IFI gave their blessing. You can probably find the image through a quick google search, but I felt I needed to point that out (Because it makes that bit of text in VII all the more funnier when you find out what they're referring to). Heck, there was someone who did something similar for Neptune. I sadly don't have that image though. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, and I hope to see you all next time.**


	12. Interlude:Nightmare Memory

**This one has been a while coming. Sorry that this particular part isn't long, but this isn't exactly meant to be a long part of the story. Just a small bit to tide you all over while I get to working on the story proper. It's taken a bit of time what with real life and several other things that have taken up my time. That being said, I hope you all enjoy this one, even just a little bit.**

* * *

It was dark for Gray Heart. Living inside the head of an 18 year old male was a seriously maddening time. If she weren't in control, all she could really do was sleep, or speak to him while he was awake...but while sleeping? Boy she had _nothing_ to do. This was one such moment, and though she knew when the day finally came, she and the other goddesses would begin the hunt for whoever of this little group was meant to be in Leanbox...but for now, Nova had to sleep, and so all she could do was really look at what he was seeing through his eyes...which was nothing, because his eyes were closed.

" _How irritating..."_ she muttered to herself _"I wish there were something to do...being dead sucks..."_

As if on cue however, something begin to play in front of Gray Heart. It was almost like watching a movie but...not? It was strange, as the next thing Gray Heart knew, she was sitting up on a bed. The surroundings were vastly different from the room Vert provided though. No this room instead was plastered with posters, it had a small TV with two antenna at the top and the room was generally messy and rather unkempt.

" _Is this...a memory?"_ Gray Heart muttered attempting to look around. But despite her best efforts she couldn't turn her head and she wasn't in control of her body at all.

"Nova, it's time for school honey!" Came a voice from downstairs

"I'm coming Mom!" A young voice called out

" _Mom? Nova's dreaming about his home? This is what his home is like? Interesting..."_ Gray Heart mused with a smile _"He must be a bit homesick...still, I guess this is the best I'll ever see of his place or at least, what it looked like when he was a kid."_

The young boy hurriedly began moving, running to the bathroom and brushing his teeth and afterwards proceeding to get properly dressed. As he came downstairs, Gray Heart was able to see what Nova's mother looked like.

She was fairly good looking, with long purple hair and glasses covering her purple eyes. _"Huh, quite a bit of purple in this family..."_ Gray Heart said with a small chuckle to herself, unfortunately, Gray Heart didn't get to see Nova's father, he must have been out already or something. As Nova's mother drove him to school, Gray Heart had to admit that this was pretty nice to see. She could feel a warmth enveloping her body, almost as if she were really dreaming this herself. A part of her wished that she had an actual childhood. But being a goddess, that simply wasn't the case. Before long Nova was dropped off at school, it was a moderately sized building with a rather large courtyard area. Perfect for children to run around in Before long, they scene shifted to Nova sitting in a classroom, him writing something down, while occasionally whispering to a boy with red hair, they were chatting about something, but Gray Heart wasn't really listening, instead she was more interested in just what Nova's early childhood was like. Being a goddess she didn't have to worry about going to school or learning how to read and write. These were just things she knew when she came into existence back in Steamport, she just kept watching, enjoying the scenes that were playing out before her, She saw him doing basic math, writing some basic words, and in another class he was making a silly drawing, and after that was a class that talked about the history of his world. It was all pretty interesting actually and made Gray Heart all the more curious of this other world. However, before Gray Heart could take in these surroundings any more, the scene in front of her shifted. Instead of the schoolyard it was now the end of the day, with Nova waving at some friends of his.

"See ya later Issen, I'll see ya tomorrow!" he called back to the red head child as he began walking off towards home. The sun was already setting as the boy began going home. Things seemed normal for the most part, but even so, a sense of dread filled Gray Heart's very being. It shook her to very core and though she wanted to shout something at Nova, something to get him to run, she couldn't. What on earth is making her feel this way?

"Hey kid, got a second?" Came a voice

"Huh—Urk!" Nova grunted as he was hit on the head from behind by an unknown assailant

"Hey, you sure that's the kid?" One voice came out

"It's him, been tailing them for a week now. Seen that bastard father of his drop him off at school a few times." replied the other

Whatever the two said next, it faded out along with Nova's vision.

" _What in the hell...who attacks a child like that?" Gray Heart growled "These assholes are lucky I don't have a body...or a time machine."_

The scene had shifted again, and this time, Nova was in a dark room, it was difficult to see anything at all, and Gray Heart could feel how nervous the child was, to make matters worse, he was confined to a small cage, as if he were nothing more than an animal.

"W-where am I? M-mom?! I'm scared!" Nova cried, starting to shake

"Hah, ya hear that? He's scared, calling for his mommy!" Came the voice from before, Nova looked at him, the man having a thuggish look to him. There was a scar on his left cheek, he had no hair, his body was a bit bulky, his shirt straining against his muscles. The grin he wore made Nova recoil in fear, the child backing up against the cage. The other man, who was looking at the whole thing play out was a bit thinner than his compatriot, but still there was some hint of muscle there. He had hair unlike his friend and seemed a fair bit more gaunt overall.

"W-what do you want from me?" Nova whimpered

"You? Nothing!" The bulky man said giving the cage a kick which caused Nova to scream in fear "No, what we want is that father of yours. Thanks to him busting up that robbery years back, we spent a hell of a time in the slammer. But we know that ol' Mighty Jack has a kid, so what better way to get him down here to give the thanks he deserves?"

"L-leave my dad alone!" Nova sputtered out in a vain attempt to sound intimidating "H-he'll beat you up!"

"Well that's why you're here! Wouldn't want to hurt us or who knows what we'd do to his beloved son eh?"

The burly man proceeded to kick the cage again. And the scene played out that way for a while, each man taking turns to kick the cage and taunt Nova more and more. Saying all the cruel things they'd do to his father. How'd they kick him, punch him, stab him, and whatever else morbid things they'd say.

" _This is awful...how could anyone treat a child this way? He's had to live with this memory all his life…?"_ Gray Heart said _"But...wait, didn't he mention this earlier to Blanc…?"_

Gray Heart thought back to earlier in the day on the conversation that Nova and Blanc had earlier in the day, her eyes widening a bit as she recalled them.

" _Not exactly. My mom was restless and she couldn't keep herself from coming to save me."_

" _She pulled it off right? I mean, you're free now."_

" _She did...but, it wasn't pretty."_

" _It wasn't pretty…?"_

" _There was a lot of blood, let's just leave at that. Please."_

It finally dawned on her that this was it. This was that kidnapping incident he'd mentioned only hours ago. But why was she seeing this now? What prompted this? It couldn't be because he mentioned it earlier could it? Was the memory of this particular day that strong that simply speaking about it could cause him to relive it? The worst part though, was that Gray Heart was hung up on one particular bit that he'd said: _"There was a lot of blood, let's just leave at that. Please."_

" _Did...did his mother die…?"_ Gray Heart muttered _"But it can't be, he said she saved him...but still...he wouldn't have said that if..."_

Gray Heart shook her head, there had to be something, _anything_ she could do. She didn't want to see this, the dread or what was to come was far too much for her to see. Even so, she couldn't look away, no matter what, she would see what the dream Nova saw, all of it. After kicking the cage for what had to have been the hundredth time, the door to the hideout the two men were hold up in opened slowly.

"Well finally! Hey there Jack, we've got a present for you!" The thin man said with a grin

"Yeah!" Said the other "Why not come on in and say before we beat you to a pulp?" The larger one chuckled

"Sorry." said a feminine voice that Nova recognized, the young child feeling safe instantly from hearing it. "But my husband isn't here right now. You'll have to answer to me instead." Nova's mother stepped forth from the door, a somewhat large scythe in her hand.

" _Holy crap, where the hell did she get that?! She can't really expect to take them out with that can she?"_ Gray Heart said startled at this development.

"What the hell, Jack sent his bitch after us? What a coward." The thin man sighed

"Oh no, my husband didn't send me. No, I came on my own...don't worry though, I'll be more than a match for you two."

"Yeah sure, I'm not fond of hitting ladies, but we'll knock you out and put you with the boy. Jack will have to come out after that." The bulky one retorted

"If you live to see him." she replied coldly her voice was emotionless, almost as if she fully intended on murdering these men.

"Heh, you're all talk!"

The two men, got into a position to surround her, Nova's mother not moving an inch. All was quiet before the two men leaped at, the woman dodging out of the way with ease, bringing the scythe down and slashing one of the thin man in the back causing him to scream in pain.

"H-holy shit, she's serious man, she really knows how to use that thing!"

"Of course I do. I'm Alice Crestfall, wife of Jack Crestfall. Did you two idiots really think I wouldn't know how to defend myself?"

The two men looked at one another and gulped before looking at one another. "Well it don't matter who ya are, we'll show you what's what!"

"That's fine...do your worst. Because you aren't walking out of that door."

Once more, both sides clashed, but it was clear that the thugs were outmatched. Alice dodged their attacks with ease, while landing numerous attacks on the thugs. The men becoming more and more bloodied as the fight went on. And yet, while Gray Heart was impressed with her skills, that same feeling of terrible dread welled up within her. She looked at Nova, who went from having a look of happiness on his face to having one of pure terror as he looked at the beat down his mother was putting on the two men. Her suit had become bloodstained, and her face was no longer cold, but was one of pure fury as she continued attacking the mean. What came next though, that was what really scared Nova. With that same look of anger on her face, Alice proceeded to drive the sharp end of her scythe into the thin man before sliding it across his abdomen. Nova saw everything come spilling out...He looked away, vomiting within the cage. And unfortunately, he brought his head up just in time to see the bulky thug lose his…

" _This woman is crazy...all of this in front of her own son?! How the hell is he so well adjusted after this?"_

As the man's head tumbled to the floor, Alice let out a small sigh. For a tense moment all was silent, she began making her way towards her Son, opening the cage and getting him out.

"Are you alright honey? It's okay, you're safe now. Momma is here." She cooed

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH~!" Nova cried as he backed away from her, recoiling in fear. Gray Heart could feel everything the child felt. The fear, the disgust at the bodies, the extreme iron smell from all the blood. It was taking all she had to keep herself from screaming herself

"Nova...honey? It's okay! Don't be afraid!"

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH-AAAAAAAAAH!"

The dream had ended as Nova's eyes burst open, his body sweating profusely and shaking as he got to his feet.

" _Whoa, Whoa, Nova, calm down…it's okay!"_ Gray Heart called out to him

"H-huh...Gray Heart? It's...that was...I..."

"Shhh, it's okay, you just had a nightmare. Go back to sleep."

"I need some water..." Nova stated getting up and heading towards the kitchen. The walk was quiet and thankfully there was no one else awake at this hour to bother him which was just as good, as Nova was definitely _not_ in the mood for talking. As he arrived in the kitchen and began pouring himself some water, Gray Heart couldn't help but speak.

" _So...that was your mom?"_ She asked

"What? You...you say my dream didn't you?" He replied taking a sip of water

" _I...well yeah. it's kinda hard not to given my situation. Um...are you going to be alright?"_

"I'll be fine." He muttered

" _Are you sure? Because I mean if you want to talk about it I-"_

"I _said_ I'll be fine." He growled menacingly which caused Gray Heart to go quiet. The anger she felt from him was almost suffocating

" _R-right...sorry. Just um...try to get some sleep?"_

"Sure..." he muttered downing the last of his water

" _Can I ask just one question?"_

"Shoot."

" _So...do you hate your mom?"_

"That's a stupid question." He replies deadpan

" _So do you?"_

"Of course not. I love my mom, she's great."

" _I see...that's all."_

The walk back to the bedroom was quiet. Gray Heart opting not to say anything else for fear of saying the wrong thing. Nova crept back into bed, and tried to close his eyes. But Gray Heart could tell he wasn't really asleep...at least not yet. The shock of that nightmare had seriously spooked him, he just didn't want to show it. A moot point really, as she could quite easily _feel_ it, but still as it was now she couldn't do anything, no matter how much she wanted to.

" _I can't do much...but maybe if I try exerting a bit of power..."_ she murmured to herself focusing a bit, as she let her energy run throughout Nova's body _"There...that should put you in a deep enough sleep that you have no more dreams or nightmares. Rest easy Nova."_

With that done, Gray Heart herself remained silent until she felt sleep taking over her consciousness as well.

* * *

 **And so there's a small interlude down. I hope I got the general idea across here regarding Nova's mother, now if she'll actually appear or not, I'm not entirely sure. Depends on how I'm feeling down the line with the next few chapters of this particular story. Anyway, I'll see you all in the next proper chapter!**


End file.
